Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

TM2-Megatron

Active member
Citizen
The “gore” in the episode turned my daughter off. We tend to avoid spoilers, trailers, even episode titles so we didn’t know what was coming. She said as the episode was starting “SNW and Picard are my favorite Star Trek shows.”

When Lieutenant Gold Shirt (blanking on his name) was attacked, she said “This isn’t my favorite anymore.”

What about the utterly pointless, tasteless scene with Icheb in Picard?
 

Lobjob

Well-known member
Citizen
Even without hearing season 2 spoilers, I didn't think La'an's good bye is good bye. If anything i half expected an adventure with her and "newt".
 

Monique

Guess whos back
Citizen
huh. For some reason I thought La'An was part of the original crew for the pilot but no, she was just for SNW. I guess in that case they eventually /had/ to get rid of her but given they have years until the events that will lead to The Cage happen she didn't need to leave now. It didn't seem like she was leaving forever but then again who knows.

Still in the case of Tasha(Denise Crosby) they didn't /get rid/ of her, she quit the show because she wanted to try her shot at movies. Dax (Terry Ferrel) quit the show when her contract was up in part due to the schedule but also to pursue other stuff, the character remained until the end. Alara (Halston Sage) left because she was offered a bigger roll on another show would pay her more. So its not really a SciFi Trope of "Get rid of your strong security/warrior female" its a trope of "Your strong security/warrior female might use your show as a stepping stone to something they think will advance their career more"

We don't know on the part of Chong, so we can't really say why she left or if she even has actually left.
 

Kalidor

Supreme System Overlord
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
I didn't forget about the Enterprise gorn or the even stupider Lower Decks gorn. I just didn't feel like it added anything to the lore
 
Last edited:

Sean Whitmore

Active member
Citizen
It's funny...on paper, I should have disliked this episode.

Its premise is built around Pike knowing his future, which is my least favorite element of the show. And it even does the thing I usually hate, where they attribute a greater, knowing weight to later events. But I didn't dislike them in this case. I actually do like that Pike got to know Kirk a bit before leaving Enterprise, which presumably leads to him recommending Kirk for the job (even though, from Kirk's POV, he'll still only remember ever meeting Pike once, after the deal was already done). And I even like Spock's vague feeling of owing Pike a debt, which provides an additional reason for his drastic actions in "Menagerie". Those both work for me.

I thought Vampire Diaries did a good job with Kirk, despite Sam laying on his description a bit thick. He portrayed Jim's contradictions well; he's a man of action, but not bloodthirsty. He's used to having his way, but he respects teamwork and the chain of command. The new Romulan Commander did well too. It strikes me now that it would've been funny if they'd used the same actor who played Sarek on Discovery.
 

Kalidor

Supreme System Overlord
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Holy shiiiiiiiii....

I didn't think it was possible. I certainly didn't expect it - but every singe episode of SNW season 1 was good. To say they *finally* understand Star Trek is an understatement.

And that finale... holy crap that was awesome. I'm so glad I didn't get spoiled on any of it
 

MrBlud

Well-known member
Citizen
DAT MOVIE UNIFORM!

It’s also nice to see that while *everything* isn’t a nail; sometimes there is one that needs to be hammered into place. Pike took the “proper”course of diplomacy over fighting which was (in this case) the absolute wrong call and lead to (rather than preventing) full scale war.
 

Kalidor

Supreme System Overlord
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
DAT MOVIE UNIFORM!

It’s also nice to see that while *everything* isn’t a nail; sometimes there is one that needs to be hammered into place. Pike took the “proper”course of diplomacy over fighting which was (in this case) the absolute wrong call and lead to (rather than preventing) full scale war.
The only thing I wasn't really buying was that actor's portrayal of Kirk. I don't think he has anywhere close to the charisma that vintage Shatner had. I do agree they did a good job explaining that the cliche trope that Kirk gets labeled as in real life is misguided and there was far more to his character than just phasers and knocking boots - I just wish they had a better guy to capture his energy.
 

Kalidor

Supreme System Overlord
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
that the simple solution for Pike now would be to still go through with warning everyone and preventing everyone from being involved in the accident, himself included, and simply retire or go into hiding on that day to set in motion the events that would lead to Kirk being in command of the Enterprise.
 

Cradok

Active member
Citizen
Yeah, good episode. Lots of delightful things, small and large. Movie uniform! Although I actually hated the update, the shiny sleeves are awful (didn't like them on the wraparound either), and the panel looks bad on a slope instead of straight. Balance of Terror! The music, the lighting! As soon as I saw the wedding, I knew what was happening. All the updated Romulan stuff looked great, the Commander was good. No Mark Lenard, but who is. Interesting to see who carried over from Pike and who didn't show up; we got a Scotty, but no Sulu or McCoy. No Stiles either, interesting to have Ortegas in his role. Angry Ortegas is scary.

But...

If I could be said to have a 'hero', it's James T. Kirk. Leader, diplomat, tactical genius, effortlessly charming. Pine's Kirk suffered from terrible writing, from the belief that Kirk is all torn uniforms and kissing green space-babes but not terribly likable. This Kirk is better, we see more of the character, all the suggestions and plans he has in this episode are straight from the original, but he's still not terribly likable. I also hate the implication that he gets the Enterprise because he's 'destined' to do so. I'm so tired of that, we seem to be seeing it more and more often these days. Also, the dialogue suggests that Kirk only gets the ship because Pike has his accident, when that's completely wrong.
 

Sean Whitmore

Active member
Citizen
Also, the dialogue suggests that Kirk only gets the ship because Pike has his accident, when that's completely wrong.

I had that thought too, but it’s an easy circle to square. Before the events of this episode, Pike probably planned to command Enterprise right up until the accident. Now that he’s resolved to let it happen, and that he knows he has a worthy successor in Kirk, he’ll probably take the promotion to fleet commander and events will unfold as we know them.

This could be contradicted if SNW lasts long enough to actually get to the accident, but we’ll see.
 

MrBlud

Well-known member
Citizen
As my friend pointed out when we were discussing this. Five seasons doesn’t have to translate into five years of their time.
 

Kalidor

Supreme System Overlord
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
As my friend pointed out when we were discussing this. Five seasons doesn’t have to translate into five years of their time.

Yeah, think about all the shows that start the next season "2 years later" or "Now it's the 90s"
 

Darth_Prime

Well-known member
Citizen
yeah, I wasn’t a fan of the actor playing Kirk. He needed more swag and charisma.

The episode was good though. Had nobody really seen Romulans? I didn’t watch Enterprise but I figured there would have been something with them. Strange that the Vulcans wouldn’t know about their connection to the Romulans. Things change fast when in The Final Frontier there is a Romulan ambassador on Earth.

So I wonder if having met Kirk and having that sit down conversation, Pike requests a young Kirk to be transferred and be his new number 1?
 

Sean Whitmore

Active member
Citizen
Had nobody really seen Romulans? I didn’t watch Enterprise but I figured there would have been something with them. Strange that the Vulcans wouldn’t know about their connection to the Romulans. Things change fast when in The Final Frontier there is a Romulan ambassador on Earth.

So I wonder if having met Kirk and having that sit down conversation, Pike requests a young Kirk to be transferred and be his new number 1?

Yeah, the Federation never saw the Romulans until the TOS episode that this one was based on. It happened in pretty much the same way; they caught a glimpse on the viewscreen, one of the crewman became distrustful of Spock, and he was like , "Hey, I'm as surprised as y'all."

They did appear briefly in Enterprise, but it was done in a pretty clever way. They were mostly behind-the-scenes, and the few Romulans who did need to be seen by other characters were disguised as Vulcans.

Kirk temporarily taking Una's place sounds like something they could potentially do, though it would be a continuity change. The way the timeline currently stands, Kirk only met Pike once, during Pike's promotion ceremony. (Which still holds, since even though they "met" in this episode, Kirk won't remember it)
 

Dekafox

Fabulously Foxy Dragon
Citizen
yeah, I wasn’t a fan of the actor playing Kirk. He needed more swag and charisma.

The episode was good though. Had nobody really seen Romulans? I didn’t watch Enterprise but I figured there would have been something with them. Strange that the Vulcans wouldn’t know about their connection to the Romulans. Things change fast when in The Final Frontier there is a Romulan ambassador on Earth.

So I wonder if having met Kirk and having that sit down conversation, Pike requests a young Kirk to be transferred and be his new number 1?
Agreed on Kirk - he definitely felt like he was lacking something a bit to me too, especially compared to how modern Uhura and Spock nailed it. It wasn't bad, just something felt off. Maybe it was just that he didn't emulate Shatner enough - that's fine for a young Kirk, which presumably he'll be if he's a regular cast member later, but unless being a captain on the Farragut instead of Enterprise had that big an impact on his recent development, he should have been closer IMO. Then again it could just be faulty memories.

I really should go rewatch Balance of Terror now just to compare. I did like how they did the light-on-the-eyes effect like in TOS, and that Spock got the classic eyebrow raise closeup.

On the Romulans, yeah, it was explicitly stated in the original Balance of Terror that no one had ever seen a Romulan during the previous war, and it was a plot point with Spock like it was here. Enterprise never got into the war proper since it didn't get it's S5, but they didn't change anything about that either. As for the Vulcan-Romulan connection having been kept secret, I know its been addressed before but I can't recall if it came up on actual TV, or only in novels/games.
 


Top Bottom