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Post by Ben Grimm on Jun 16, 2022 21:11:39 GMT -5
Okay, THAT character coming back definitely threw me for a loop. Definitely unexpected. Possibly overdue, but unexpected.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jun 18, 2022 1:24:49 GMT -5
I don't know.... this was the first episode where I'm afraid it veered too close to audience pandering and/or fanservice for me.
And while I love Spock, there are only 10 episodes in this season, did we need another one about Spock so close to the first one?
I feel like I never really got on the wavelength of this episode. I found it a bit boring. I'm having a rough week, though. Maybe I'll give it another watch over the weekend.
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Jun 18, 2022 23:25:53 GMT -5
Okay, THAT character coming back definitely threw me for a loop. Definitely unexpected. Possibly overdue, but unexpected. That was a fun episode, and THAT character definitely took me by surprise! Very interested to see what they do with them! |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jun 25, 2022 1:00:02 GMT -5
Did anyone watch episode 8 of SNW? I just did. I am not entirely sure what I think about it.
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Post by Prole Hole on Jun 25, 2022 5:02:48 GMT -5
Did anyone watch episode 8 of SNW? I just did. I am not entirely sure what I think about it. It wasn't terribly good and couldn't land it's emotional beats at all, but parts of it were intermittently entertaining. Cast fun > audience fun. I swear I'll get back to writing up by-episide reviews (homelife is a shitshow bit complex right now so I don't have as much writing time as usual). |
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Post by Ben Grimm on Jun 25, 2022 8:06:19 GMT -5
Did anyone watch episode 8 of SNW? I just did. I am not entirely sure what I think about it. I liked it, for the most part. I've generally enjoyed the "silly fun" episodes of Star Trek when they're well executed. The ending worked for me, even if it was a bit of a ridiculous way to end her arc (I'm assuming for the series, but possibly just for the season). Overall I'd probably put it in the weaker half of the season but that's whatever the opposite of damning with faint praise is. |
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Jun 25, 2022 12:37:01 GMT -5
Did anyone watch episode 8 of SNW? I just did. I am not entirely sure what I think about it. I liked it, for the most part. I've generally enjoyed the "silly fun" episodes of Star Trek when they're well executed. The ending worked for me, even if it was a bit of a ridiculous way to end her arc (I'm assuming for the series, but possibly just for the season). Overall I'd probably put it in the weaker half of the season but that's whatever the opposite of damning with faint praise is. I haven't watched this one yet, but I just have to say - LOOK AT THE AUTHOR!!!  |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jun 26, 2022 22:11:14 GMT -5
Did anyone watch episode 8 of SNW? I just did. I am not entirely sure what I think about it. It wasn't terribly good and couldn't land it's emotional beats at all, but parts of it were intermittently entertaining. Cast fun > audience fun. I swear I'll get back to writing up by-episide reviews (homelife is a shitshow bit complex right now so I don't have as much writing time as usual).
Yeah, I think this is ultimately where I landed. I liked everything to do with Hemmer, especially the interactions with Hemmer and M'Benga. The only part of the silly fantasy stuff that I enjoyed was the interactions between fairytale character Ortegas and fairytale character Pike. It is a bit strange, though, that the most screen time Ortegas has had this season is as a fairytale knight.
The entire ending scene didn't work for me at all. I wanted it to, though. I watched a couple times. But it all felt a bit perfunctory, and more than a bit ridiculous. The show so very much wanted it to be meaningful and emotional, but it all just seemed silly. And it feels wrong that the show decided to just end this story after a handful of episodes. The character set up here was "M'Benga desperately searches for a cure" but the resolution was "M'Benga needs to learn how to let go". And there just weren't enough connecting threads there to make that feel like a natural character progression.
I'm fine with the plots being episodic, but I need the characterization to be serialized, please.
It is going near the bottom of my episode rankings. I really didn't like Episode 7 at all, though, so that one may rank below this one for me.
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Jun 30, 2022 10:49:43 GMT -5
I feel dumb, I should have known that Sam Kirk is Jim Kirk's BROTHER, not his father. Just didn't pay that much attention to the age, and forgot what his father's name was in the NuTrek films.
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Post by Ben Grimm on Jun 30, 2022 17:30:20 GMT -5
First episode I straight up hate. I guess they can't all be winners. Unforgivable. And incredibly contrived. The show did not earn this.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jun 30, 2022 23:29:59 GMT -5
I feel dumb, I should have known that Sam Kirk is Jim Kirk's BROTHER, not his father. Just didn't pay that much attention to the age, and forgot what his father's name was in the NuTrek films.
His brother is the one who gets killed by flying pancakes in TOS's Season 2 finale.
So there, Pike. You don't have the *worst* fate of all of these people.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jul 1, 2022 0:42:51 GMT -5
Episode 9. Ugh, that sucked.
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Post by Prole Hole on Jul 1, 2022 18:50:55 GMT -5
Yeah, that wasn't good. Hey, you know how doing Aliens is really contrived? Let's do that, but also kill of pretty much the best new character this show has come up with!
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jul 2, 2022 0:11:28 GMT -5
Yeah, that wasn't good. Hey, you know how doing Aliens is really contrived? Let's do that, but also kill of pretty much the best new character this show has come up with!
Nailed it.
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Post by Prole Hole on Jul 9, 2022 10:35:24 GMT -5
I'll post this here and cross-post in the Podcast thread, but my good self and Nathan Ford's Evil Twin have started our Star Trek TOS podcast now, Talking Trek To You. He's never seen the original show, I've seen little else, so its an expert and a noob situation. We went live on Friday with Where No Man Has Gone Before and will be posting bi-weekly. Every episode we have a guest on, except for the opening one where it's just the two of us. Recording-wise we're doing broadcast order not production order and we're up to The Naked Time so far. We have a site here, and we're on Apple Podcasts, Spotify etc but you should be able to find it on any podcatcher you're using. |
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Post by sarapen on Jul 11, 2022 10:11:58 GMT -5
The finale veered perilously close to being obnoxiously obsessed with an episode from a completely different TV show that aired in the 60s. I haven't seen that episode, I was able to piece together how it probably went under Kirk, but I was annoyed that I had to do that at all in the first place.
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matt
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Post by matt on Jul 14, 2022 11:03:30 GMT -5
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jul 16, 2022 18:12:45 GMT -5
I finally saw the finale. I didn't really like it. It was better than episodes 6-9, but not by much. Anson Mount was great in it, but that's old news at this point.
I hate this entire Klingon time crystal idea and I hate the idea that Trek is telling Pike "the future is set in stone, you can't change it". Why is SNW so interested in definitively answering this question now, instead of letting Pike wrestle with this over the course of the series? Just because WE know the future doesn't mean he should.
Also, I'm skeptical of the idea that if he changes the future then Spock dies IN EVERY OTHER TIMELINE! And we can't have that because Spock is IMPORTANT. Important to reunification, apparently. Even though JJ Trek movies, ST: PIC and ST: DSC all prove Spock wasn't important for this at all. So the writers want Pike to believe in the future he's seen, even though they don't want to believe in the Trek future they've seen.
Finally, I fundamentally don't believe Pike would have taken these actions with the Romulans. I don't think Kirk was at all out of line in "Balance of Terror". Spock agreed with him then. In this episode Pike has Kirk, Spock and Ortegas all agreeing on this. Because, frankly, hailing this captain and saying, "Hey, you just destroyed several of our outposts and killed a bunch of our people. Want to be friends?" is ludicrous. It sounded ludicrous when I was watching the episode. I don't think the Pike we saw in earlier SNW episodes would do this.
I sincerely hope Season 2 of this show doesn't turn into some nostalgia fest. I wish DSC or PIC were better shows because I'd much prefer a Trek show set in the future than a prequel.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jul 16, 2022 20:46:26 GMT -5
Also, in the Alternate timeline, did La'an imply that Una couldn't have any communication from friends while she's in a Federation prison? That doesn't seem like a thing that would happen, right?
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Post by Prole Hole on Jul 18, 2022 3:35:41 GMT -5
Strange New Worlds: Season 1, Episode 8 [Apologies for delay: life stuff. I'll get to the other episodes eventually] The running thread of Dr M'Benga's sick daughter, and his efforts to cure her, has been just that - a running thread. It's come up in a couple of episodes, it's been absent from a couple of episodes, but it's been used to deepen our understanding of M'Benga and give Babs Olusanmokun the chance to act his socks off. Both of which have very much been achieved. Back in the sixth episode, the deeply unsatisfying "Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach", M'Benga is able to get access to some advanced medical information which very much implied that his research would be ongoing. That episode didn't give him a cure, but it gave him a path. Thought that was going to be how the situation was resolved? Or give it somewhere to go? Wrrrrrrrrong! Nope, instead his daughter is going to disappear in a blaze of exposition, written out in an episode that really, really wants to be as funny as it thinks it is then pull off a dog-leg at the end to allow the drama of the episode to land. You may gather from that sentence that it does not manage to achieve either of those things. Instead, we have a Lonely And Powerful Alien Being who does Lonely And Powerful Alien Being things for reasons of the script. Before we get into the whole daughter-thing-slash-mysterious-being, though, let's deal with the comedy side of things. Now, comedy in Star Trek is a very hit-and-miss affair. This is, admittedly, something of an understatement. For every "The Trouble With Tribbles" there's a "Profit And Lace". For every "Bride Of Chaotica!" there's a "False Profits". And if you read that and think, "about even then" well, that's because I haven't even mentioned Lwaxana Troi yet. There's so many more dud comedy episodes than there are successful ones. That's partly because the scripts are often found wanting, and partly because given the "funny" script, cast members are inclined to go big. This is not always - or ever, really - a recipe for success. Going big is rarely the answer. But what, posits this episode, if we intentionally go big and thus give the stars a chance to just piss about for forty or so minutes before getting to the point of all of this? Thus, "The Elysian Kingdom" is born. It is in the nature of first season stories that they stretch out and try different things to see what works and what doesn't. The remarkable thing about Strange New Worlds is how often it's been able to land on the "what works" side of the equation. Which isn't to suggest that "The Elysian Kingdom" is a failure, exactly, though you'd be hard-pressed to call it a success either. What it actually consists of is about forty minutes of intermittently amusing material, followed by an ending that has nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the story. What "The Elysian Kingdom" wants to do, it seems, is what "Shore Leave" did back in the first season of TOS - generate a fantasy comedy environment then gradually make it more and more threatening to up the drama, until there's real danger to the crew. But the pacing is all wrong here. By the time we realize there's any kind of danger it's too late in the story for it to register, and in any case since that's not what the conclusion of the episode rests on it all rather dissipates. Which isn't to say the comedy is a complete bust. Anson Mount gets to show off just how much of his performance of Pike is acting by instead embracing the role of a snivelling - and eventually treacherous - sidekick. He doesn't get a lot of screen-time, but what he does get he really embraces with gusto (and that centre parting - I hope he got danger money for that). For anyone used to seeing him as the effortlessly in-control captain it's quite the shock to the system. As one of only two members of the crew not affected by the storybook fantasy, M'Benga gets to put up with various iterations of the cast fulfilling storybook archetypes from the wicked queen on the throne to an archer of questionable strategic value (one of the comedy moments that really lands, to be fair). This he does with a sort of grudging acceptable which helps sell the absurdity of the environment as much as the drapes and flaming torches which suddenly bedeck the Enterprise. Hemmer, who remains by miles the most interesting new character Strange New Worlds has come up with, is also immune to the alien being's attempts at inexpensively re-enacting Dungeons and Dragons for no particularly good reason, which means we get lots of Bruce Horak's barely-restrained frustrations, and a jolly good thing that is too. Hemmer and M'Benga make an unusual pairing but a surprisingly successful one, and them just jumping through one hakcy fantasy setting to another does manage to wring at least some - if not as much as the episode would like to think - comedy from the proceedings. Hemmer remains an incredibly pleasing presence on Strange New Worlds - sour in exactly the right way, which manages to enhance the audience's appreciation of what's around him rather than detract from it. Most of the crew are terribly earnest, and Uhura's thus-far-not-quite-compelling doubts about being in Starfleet don't have enough weight to carry much in terms of cutting against the all-in-it-together attitude of the rest of the crew. It's good for her character and history, and it is appreciated, but it's not very high up in the mix. Hemmer is far more successful in that regard, and this episode is a great example of how to use a character like that to good effect - give him plenty to do and a meaty role, then basically let him pass judgement on what's going on. It works very well. Right, the daughter thing. Let's get it out of the way. It doesn't work. The script really wants to be full of pathos and understanding as M'Benga finally lets of the daughter he has loved and cared for all this time, getting to see her as a grown woman, and having her express her gratitude for that. There's lots wrong with this, but let's be clear about one thing - none of it is Babs Olusanmokun, who works so hard to make any of this land. His grief, his eventual understanding of This Week's Handy Entity, his decision to let his daughter go - all of it is carries off with great aplomb. M'Benga hasn't been the most used character in Strange New Worlds, but a little goes a long way and he's simply fantastic here. But the decisions around the fate of his daughter are just baffling. What was the point of the thread of her cure being searched for, if she was just going to et written out here? And why isn't her fate layered into the episode more? While God-Like Entities turning up for Reasons are very much in line with what TOS would do, this one is especially spurious. Because we know nothing about the entity at all and spend hardly any time with it, the sense of loneliness that apparently engulfs it is completely abstract - it's just something we're told about rather than something we experience and thus gain a connection with. Sure, the shenanigans in fantasy-land are meant to represent that, but since they're played strictly for laughs that doesn't come across at all. The vast, empty loneliness of the creature is mostly represented by its desire to run away with a young girl because she's broken but like reading a bit. It's not great. There's also the moment M'Benga decides to let his daughter choose whether to go with the creature or not. It's meant to be a big, heartfelt moment as he releases her and lets her be her own person. Except... she's a child. He's her parent. Shouldn't he be making those kind of decisions for her, since she's... you know. A child. Not even a normal child running about the ship and learning stuff, but one who lives in the transporter for most of her time, seems to experience nothing except her father reading her stories, and has no frame of reference for what's actually happening (or is about to happen) to her. It mostly makes it look like M'Benga's given up and just wants done with the whole plot thread. It works out in the end, but very much more by luck than judgement. The word "handy" may usefully be deployed here. Again, Babs Olusanmokun is great in the moment, but his performance very nearly occludes what is, in fact, a pretty terrible moment. And then off the child and the entity go together, in a scene that's meant to be touching yet resembles Bender's encounter with "God" in Futurama as much as it does anything else. And at least that episode was genuinely funny. And so that plot thread is neatly wrapped wrapped up with a bow, sent on its way, and that's pretty much that. There's a little capper, just in cause you were worried that abandoning a child with a complete stranger might not be the best approach to parenting, and we're reassured that it all worked out fine. Which is nice. What a frustrating way for that story to be resolved. And "frustrating" is a fair summary of this episode. It's not bad, the first twenty or so minutes are fun - before you realise that's all this episode is going to consist of - and most of the actors look like they're having a blast. That helps a bit. Then comes the Big Emotional Beats and the whole thing just goes splat. There were better ways of resolving M'Benga's daughter plot. There were better ways of handling the comedy. There were better ways of doing a fantasy-setting in Star Trek. And that's it in the end - this simply should have been better.
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Post by liebkartoffel on Jul 18, 2022 19:07:23 GMT -5
TIL the TNG episode title "Ensigns of Command" is a reference to the John Quincy Adams poem "Wants of Man": "I want the seals of power and place/the ensigns of command/charged by the people's unbought grace/to rule my native land." So, the aforementioned "ensigns" are standards or flags, and the context is the Federation colony claiming sovereignty over their planet. This is still a baffling title choice, given that a) a John Quincy Adams poem is pretty deep fucking cut, and b) ensign is also a Starfleet rank. I guess they could be going for a pun, but if so it's not a particularly good or interesting one.
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Post by liebkartoffel on Jul 22, 2022 22:37:16 GMT -5
Speaking of ranks...finally re-subscribed to Paramount Plus and we're halfway through Strange New Worlds. It's good! It lives up to the TIF hype! They finally made a Star Trek show!...but the rank insignia are driving me nuts, because that's the sort of thing I fixate on. Found this image on some Trek forum, which amused me:  |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jul 22, 2022 23:24:15 GMT -5
Speaking of ranks...finally re-subscribed to Paramount Plus and we're halfway through Strange New Worlds. It's good! It lives up to the TIF hype! They finally made a Star Trek show!...but the rank insignia are driving me nuts, because that's the sort of thing I fixate on. Found this image on some Trek forum, which amused me: Of course, "Nurse" and "Doctor" aren't ranks, they are titles, like "Science officer" or "engineer". Pretty sure Crusher was Lt Cmdr for at least part of TNG, and was eventually Commander in the films. (Though I didn't look this up to verify, sorry.)
I can't explain the nonsense going on with the other rank insignia, though.
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Post by liebkartoffel on Jul 23, 2022 10:30:01 GMT -5
Speaking of ranks...finally re-subscribed to Paramount Plus and we're halfway through Strange New Worlds. It's good! It lives up to the TIF hype! They finally made a Star Trek show!...but the rank insignia are driving me nuts, because that's the sort of thing I fixate on. Found this image on some Trek forum, which amused me: Of course, "Nurse" and "Doctor" aren't ranks, they are titles, like "Science officer" or "engineer". Pretty sure Crusher was Lt Cmdr for at least part of TNG, and was eventually Commander in the films. (Though I didn't look this up to verify, sorry.)
I can't explain the nonsense going on with the other rank insignia, though.
Crusher was a full commander throughout the series; as was Pulaski for her season. They bring it up in a late-series episode--chief medical officers only need to be at most lieutenant commanders, but Crusher took the extra step of passing the bridge officer's exam and qualifying as a commander. (You'd think she would have been bumped up several ranks beyond that when she briefly became the chief of Starfleet Medical, but whatever.) So anyway, yes, it's plausible that M'Benga is a commander. Less so that Nurse Chapel--who they imply is actually a civilian--is also a commander, provisional or otherwise. Logically, the two wide strips would indicate full commander, but Una is explicitly a lieutenant commander. Ortegas and La'an, who have the same stripes, are referred to as lieutenants. Spock's sleeve stripes--nearly impossible to see, as they're blue on blue--are one wide and one narrow, and he's also a lieutenant. It's a mess, but Trek has a long history of being loosey-goosey with ranks and rank insignia. See also: Lieutenant/Ensign/[whatever a single hollow pip denotes]/Chief Petty Officer O'Brien. It should be noted that I've generally hated Nu-Trek costume design, but I think SNW's is fantastic, wonky stripes notwithstanding. I just hope someone was fired for that blunder &c &c. |
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Post by Ben Grimm on Jul 23, 2022 17:13:44 GMT -5
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jul 23, 2022 17:34:16 GMT -5
This indicates it will be a mix of live action and animation. As in, they are going to do it Roger Rabbit-style? .... Very curious about this!
Also, the Lower Decks trailer has a scene of what looks to be Martok, the greatest Klingon ever in Star Trek. Very promising!
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Post by Ben Grimm on Jul 23, 2022 17:47:53 GMT -5
This indicates it will be a mix of live action and animation. As in, they are going to do it Roger Rabbit-style? .... Very curious about this!
Also, the Lower Decks trailer has a scene of what looks to be Martok, the greatest Klingon ever in Star Trek. Very promising!
The impression I get is there will be live-action scenes and animated scenes, but both casts will appear in both. Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome will be playing Boimler and Mariner in live action, and maybe some of the others, too (and several of the LD actors are well-suited to playing their characters in live action). |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jul 23, 2022 18:24:37 GMT -5
This indicates it will be a mix of live action and animation. As in, they are going to do it Roger Rabbit-style? .... Very curious about this!
Also, the Lower Decks trailer has a scene of what looks to be Martok, the greatest Klingon ever in Star Trek. Very promising!
The impression I get is there will be live-action scenes and animated scenes, but both casts will appear in both. Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome will be playing Boimler and Mariner in live action, and maybe some of the others, too (and several of the LD actors are well-suited to playing their characters in live action).
Yeah, I figured this would be the way they will do it. But Roger-Rabbit-style would be hilarious and so much fun
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Post by liebkartoffel on Jul 27, 2022 14:18:40 GMT -5
Wrapped up SNW last night.
1.01 "Strange New Worlds": Very pilot-y with lots of table setting and wrapping up Discovery stuff that I never watched and don't care about. Throwing another science nitpick on the pile: setting aside the distance issue, what practically applicable information about warp drives could this alien society have gleaned simply from watching a space battle? They seem to barely be beyond us technology-wise - if we pointed the James Webb at some alien ships passing through the neighborhood would we have a working "warp bomb" within three months? Otherwise the plot is eh, fine, typical Prime Directive General Order 1 Trek episode, which admittedly feels good to say after subjecting myself to a handful of very un-Trek-feeling Disco and PIC episodes. No, what sold me on SNW at this point was a) the cast, which fortunately came pre-gelled, and b) the incredible production design. They do a fantastic job updating the look and feel of the TOS era--far better than the Kelvin movies, imo--without resorting to parody or ignoring 60s aesthetics entirely. Holy shit that captain's cabin, with that real mid-century style fireplace! I loved the little dining area too--such a great setting for informal crew scenes. Everything's just so...pleasing to look at. This is the first time I've watched a Trek show and thought "sign me up for Starfleet with quarters like these!" B-
1.02 "Children of the Comet": Just a solid "weird shit in space" episode. Good (re-)introduction of Uhura and her capabilities--though her...I guess you would call it applied linguistics skills are growing increasingly superhuman with each new iteration of the character--and another great set with that freaky alien egg. Good showcase of Pike's more diplomatic command style as well. I don't think they needed to press the "Pike Grapples With His Fate" button so soon after the pilot, though. B+
1.03 "Ghosts of Illyria": The first great episode of the series, and the first that I don't feel like I'd need to grade on the Nu-Trek curve - if you slotted this episode into any given classic Trek series it would still hold up. Again, I can't stress enough how satisfying it feels to have good episodic one-and-done adventuring Trek again. Loved the twist about the scary fire monsters turning out to be the Illyrians themselves, or at least their remnants. A-
1.04 "Memento Mori": Pretty obvious that the Gorn are going to be SNW's Borg, which makes sense, but I can't help but think "yeah, but I'm pretty sure I remember Kirk taking one down with a karate chop to the neck." I love it when Trek does tense submarine-style battles a la Balance of Terror and Wrath of Khan, and I enjoyed the sweet (with hindsight bittersweet) character moments between Uhura and Hemmer. Sure are talking a lot about death, aren't you Hemmer?...I'd like to hear a physicist's take on the feasibility of hiding out in a brown dwarf that's being rapidly devoured by a black hole, and all the concern about the Enterprise getting pancaked by the pressure reminded me of one of my favorite Futurama bits: "Dear lord, that's over 150 atmospheres of pressure! How many atmospheres can the ship withstand? Well, she's a space ship, so I'd say anywhere between 0 and 1." A-
1.05 "Spock Amok": Sorry not sorry, but my favorite episode of the season. I like Freaky Fridays, okay? In addition to be genuinely funny, practically everyone gets a moment to shine, and winning over the R'ongovians with radical empathy was a clever touch and another good example of what sets Pike apart from the other captains. I laughed out loud at the bit about Chief Kyle being a monstrous taskmaster. (To amuse myself and annoy/amuse C I had already by the second episode taken to calling out "Kyle!" in a "Norm!"-like fashion whenever he showed on screen. Kyle's great.) I will say I'm tepid at best regarding the Spock/Chapel/T'Pring love triangle but it's enough to fuel an episode of fun shore leave hijinks. A
1.06 "Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach": Mediocre, but I don't think I disliked it as much some here. Thanks to my knowledge of Star Trek Storytelling Convention #12.a ("all non-federation utopias are secret dystopias") and Alora's frequent and significant allusions to the value of sacrifice, I wasn't exactly blindsided by the twist. It's very "mid-century science fiction short story," as Grimm pointed out. I didn't have an issue with the nature of the story, the downer ending, or even particularly with Pike's actions, more with how their explanation for why it's necessary to sacrifice a kid to keep their civilization afloat is so frustratingly vague and underbaked. There's not even any soothing technobabble, just..."uh, umm, I dunno, the ill-defined elders said so...but are you not a hypocrite for believing otherwise?!?" And if their big concern is about their city falling into lava couldn't they just...settle somewhere else? This reminded me of that TNG episode with the "utopian" society kidnapping children, but in that case the Enterprise stuck around to figure out was wrong and helped fix the problem. B-
1.07 "The Serene Squall": In my mind the true dud of the season. As Desert Dweller pointed out, yet another Spock-centered episode (much less yet another episode centered on Spock's love life, specifically) so soon after "Spock Amok" feels completely unnecessary. Why not give Una an episode? Or Ortegas? Or (sniff) Hemmer? My biggest issue with this, however, is Jesse James Keitel's performance, which nosedives into a "high school drama club" territory following her heel-turn. I know she's reaching for TOS-style hamminess, but nope, no, uh-uh, doesn't work. Painful to watch. And all this just to introduce the crummy villain from perhaps the crummiest Trek film of tall time? Also, sorry, The Adventures of Space Pirate Angel and the Serene Squall reads dangerously close to barely-adapted self-insert fanfic. Someone check the writers' AO3 accounts. C-
1.08 "The Elysian Kingdom": Wanted to like this more than I did. C pointed out that this episode could have been a lot more successful if they had adapted an already-existing fairytale or some other public domain property, a la TNG's Robin Hood episode - something where the audience is already aware of the characters and tropes. Instead, in inventing their own fairytale, they have to pause the action every couple of minutes to explain who is who and what they want and why they did what they just did. Pike can't just be, say, the Sheriff of Nottingham; he has to be some random guy with a silly name who it turns out likes to betray people. I did kind of enjoy Mount's character-how do we make the lantern-jawed manly man into a sniveling toady? umm...give him a center part and have him hunch a little?"--but there's a sweaty, "are we having fun yet?" quality to most of the cast's performances. Babs Olusanmokun's barely contained irritation at this nonsense is the only thing keeping everything from running off the rails. And...yeah, that ending. I think it could've have worked if Rukiya had genuinely pushed and pleaded to be with her new god-like being friend, but having M'Benga more or less talk her into staying (because something something Mercury Stone) was off-putting and jarringly out of character. The metanarrative seams really start showing there. "All right we're dropping the Rukiya subplot because I'm bored with it. Writers, find a way for her die or leave or something and for M'Benga to be mostly fine with it. You have one episode. Go!" C
1.09 "All Those Who Wander": Star Trek Storytelling Convention #25.c: if a background crewmember suddenly receives a name at the beginning of an episode they will be dead by the end of said episode. RIP Lieutenant Duke and Cadet...I want to say Mira? Chiba? I definitely seemed to like this one more than the rest of you. Yeah, it's derivative, but it's competently written, suitably scary, and propulsively paced. Sure, they killed off Hemmer, the bastards, but they kind of telegraphed that back in Memento Mori, and I don't feel like his death was flippant or unearned...or at least he went out on better terms than Tasha Yar. Still, I'd be perfectly happy if Hemmer's identical cousin, uh, Bemmer, showed up to be the new chief engineer next season. Again, I feel like they're trying to build up the Gorn a little too much. If they're this scary and powerful how come they haven't taken over half the galaxy yet? Sam suddenly deciding he's mad at Spock for not being emotional enough was also dumb and felt like some character conflict thrown in for the sake of conflict. B-
1.10 "A Quality of Mercy": I remembered enough of Balance of Terror to spot the deliberate homages in terms of shots and lines of dialogue, but not enough to remember if they nailed the characterization of the Romulans. It seems odd that if the Romulan commander was so intent on ending the war and establishing peace with the Federation that he'd be out there blowing up Federation outposts in the first place. But whatever, good action, and it's mostly all intended to contrast Pike and Kirk's leadership styles. If learning that his accident indirectly saves Spock's life--along with a substantial chunk of the galaxy--puts "Pike Grapples with His Fate" to rest, I'm okay with that, as I never found that throughline particularly compelling. Just let the guy go out there and have some fun. Bone some aliens. Cook brunch for his crew. That sort of thing. Boo serialization! Yay space adventures and episodic storytelling! But anyway, speaking of Kirk...is it too late to recast? Poor Paul Wesley is introduced as a charmer, a gambler, and an "entire deck of wildcards"...but when he shows up on screen he has all the charisma of a wet ham. Putting him opposite Mount, who's just...bigger, both in physical stature and in presence, doesn't really help. Is charisma something an actor can learn? Like, really fast? B
Season average: B
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Post by Prole Hole on Jul 28, 2022 7:55:34 GMT -5
Again, I swear I'll get round to the last two episodes (Life Stuff still getting in the way) but FWIW 1.09 easily the worst episode of the season, derivative trash. And there are redshirts that got a better death than Tasha Yar, so that's not the bar we should be judging against. AQoM - Not as clever as it thinks it is. Hate the timestone / monks conceit more and more. An in-episode Yesterday's Enterprise That Isn't As Good As Yesterday's Enterprise doesn't wow, but Mount is fucking great, and there's lots of fantastic individual moments. They just don't a-mount (heh) to very much. Anson Mount is a better Captain Kirk than Paul Wesley, and has the Kirk swagger in exactly the way Wesley doesn't. It's not that Wesley isn't Shatner, it's that he isn't even Pine. I get that they want to take the character in a slightly different direction but you don't get to do that with legacy characters - that's the whole point. If you want to go in a different direction, fine, but then cast Wesley as Captain Wetham of the USS Uncharismatic and have done by, and get someone else to play a role that actually needs an actor to go big. I'm acutely aware of just how good Shatner was in the role because I'm rewatching the Classic Series for Talking Trek To You, and, wow, he's not the best actor ever but fuck me if he can fill the TV screen. Wesley barely even seems to fill his uniform. |
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