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Strange New Worlds season 2

CaptainWacky said:




I think there was a quick line saying the way humans experience emotions is different and I took that to mean he wasn't trained to suppress specifically human emotions and that's why he went emotion-nuts.
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Still doesn't wash; he's half-human, which means he's spent his whole life up to that point managing both. This is just... there's no point looking for an excuse for that episode, because there isn't any excuse for that episode. They just wanted to shit on the character, so they shat on the character.

And, yeah, Spock showed emotion a few times in TOS. It was effective because it was a rarity. Picture this version of Spock in the classic ep, "Amok Time"...

Chapel: "He yelled at me and threw a bowl of soup at me!"
Kirk: "Yeah, he's like that on Mondays."

Um... no.

I will give them credit for this, though: That crossover wouldn't have worked nearly as well if the LD characters weren't basically flagrant self-inserts.
 
They got some grit in the fun show, this is certainly a bold choice to sandwich between a lower decks crossover and the musical episode.
 
It was a good character episode for M'Benga especially and Chapel. I guess this explains why he wasn't Chief Medical Officer in TOS: that lingering "did he murder an ambassador?" doubt.

Nice to see Clint Howard in yet another Trek series.
 
Lost in Translation

A pretty strong Uhura-centric episode that has a lot going on. We had strong character moments, legacy characters meeting each other for the first time, and a pretty neat (if slightly derivative) mystery with some effective horror elements thrown in for good measure. There are a few pacing issues, and as Wacky mentioned, this is pretty much a rehash of Night Terrors, but I thought it was done well, and dare I say it was better than that rather mediocre TNG episode.

Celia Rose Gooding did a great job. This show has some really good actors.

It was great seeing Hemmer return (even in this incarnation), and even though I've mentioned it before, I really like the sets they have in this show. We got to see a lot of the ship in this one, and it all looked fantastic.

BUSSARD COLLECTORS!

I really enjoyed Una and Pelia's back-and-forths as well, although their subplot didn't really add much to the episode.

Since I went in pretty hard on Paul Wesley's portrayal of Kirk last time out in his third appearance here, he's MUCH better. It seems like a more refined performance from Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and for the first time, I actually felt like he had moments where he did channel Kirk. I'm not saying I'm totally sold or anything, but this was a big improvement for me. Look, it's not an easy job trying to portray a character like Kirk, so I appreciated that there was care to improve it here and that there was some of the brashness and devil-may-care attitude that was sorely lacking from his last appearance.

Uhuras' first interaction with Kirk, being her socking him in the face was funny.

The resolution of the episode felt extremely rushed, considering these are hour-long episodes. From Uhura miraculously figuring out what was happening and explaining it to Pike to blowing up the station happened in around 30 seconds, and it was jarring, but it didn't detract too much from what was a very good episode.

Spock and Kirk meet for the first time as well. That's neat.

I do need more Pike in this show, though, and we're running out of time for this season.
 
These Old Scientists

The cross-over episode with Lower Decks. I was admittedly reticent, but gladly, I needn't of been. I can be a bit of a curmudgeon when it comes to not breaking the fourth wall on Star Trek and messing too much with established lore (which has always been a problem I've had with revisiting the earlier time periods in general). Most of this comes from feeling that the people being given the immense privilege of continuing Star Trek either don't get it, don't care, or are just incompetent (or all three). Strange New Worlds has definitely loosened me on that hang-up because it finally feels like we have people in charge who know what they're doing, and whilst I don't agree with every decision, you can tell that the show is made with actual care and attention to detail, and this episode did a great job of not pushing things too far into absurdity.

I remember when Lower Decks started and being highly underwhelmed with the first few episodes. The frenetic joke-telling and constant references (both of which have been acknowledged in both Lower Decks itself and this episode) were not really my thing, but even though I haven't watched every episode of Lower Decks, I have caught enough of it up to this point that I know it has found its groove and become much better than I had any hope for it to be from those early first impressions.

The obvious episode to compare with is Trials and Tribble-ations, and while I wouldn't put it quite at that level, I still thought this was really good.
From the animated intro sequence to seeing Boimler and Mariner in live action and how perfect it was, this was just a fun ride. The total fanboying of Boimler was a surprisingly vicarious experience, and it was hard not to smile a lot for the entire runtime.

I mention a lot that I don't like established lore being changed, so I have to give props to how they have dealt with Spock juggling his Vulcan and human sides in the show and how that ties into the early incarnations of Spock we see in TOS. This ADDS to established lore and gives us a reason for something most fans have just handwaived away as them figuring the character out. Having an in-universe explanation is just neat. Spock being half-human was sparsely explored, and I never felt that it had that much bearing on the character, so I really like how we see that this was something that wasn't always the case. Very well done.

I thought the episode balanced the silliness well, something I also gave props to doing in Charades. Lower Decks and SNW are obviously miles apart in tone, and it could have been a mess, but it was handled well, and all the humor landed for me. Shout out to Frakes for directing as well.

I'm really enjoying this season. We need more than 10 episodes.

Two thumbs up.

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I liked the episode. The dialog felt a bit forced when M'Benga was doing the martial arts with the ambassador (very minor issue). This might be the best episode of the season.
 
Watched the latest in chunks across yesterday and today and think that choice might've confuzzled me a little.

So, the circulating story was the Ambassador killed his own men in outrage over their atrocities - and he traded on that - right? But M'Benga knew it was total BS as he was the Butcher of Gallitep, or whatever the planet's name was. He did give the order to kill all civilians and his only act of redemption was to flee like a coward? Hmmm. Yeah, I think it's just "what did Starfleet believe about him?" that I'm not sure about.

Solid. I like that the show can accommodate these tonal shifts. The lighter baseline gives these sorts of episodes more punch.
 
It is great to finally have a ST that is consistently good! I feel like the other new Trek series completely forgot how to have a little fun. I used to wish they'd make a ST that was more like BSG, but now I see that was a mistake. What I really wanted was a ST that had adventure, fun, some serious stuff, decent acting, and episodes that can stand alone.
 
Yeah, completely. I love the tonal shifts and the idea that they can do pretty much everything with this show across the board. I'm okay with one ep being a comedy, the next one being serious business, and next time it's a musical. Bonus points for the cast pulling all of that off as well. It's very TOS dialed up to 11.
 
Cassie said:
It is great to finally have a ST that is consistently good! I feel like the other new Trek series completely forgot how to have a little fun. I used to wish they'd make a ST that was more like BSG, but now I see that was a mistake. What I really wanted was a ST that had adventure, fun, some serious stuff, decent acting, and episodes that can stand alone.
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If you had told me 18 years ago that I'd look back more fondly on the "Trip gets impregnated" episode than on the average BSG episode, I'd have called you crazy.
 
Here's the thing that nuTrek has gotten absolutely wrong most of the modern era: Utopia. Perfect characters. Boring. "Seinfeld" kind of joked about it, but horrible, horrible characters are far more entertaining. Soap operas know this. "How I Met Your Mother" knew this. What is the challenge of a perfect character with a perfect life? What is his struggle? The interesting thing is seeing flawed people try to get to a good place.

The other thing is just no real character development. Characters behave a certain way in an episode because that's what the episode requires. Next week they may behave in an entirely different way. Admitted, I haven't watched more than the pilot and some snippets of this show, but I get the impression that they make the characters behave consistently from episode to episode. Just doing that puts it light years above anything 'Trek has done in a very long time.
 
Critisisng a show you've only seen one episode of is like watching one Manchester United game where they lose, and declaring them as the worst team ever.
 
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