I can’t believe it’s already back. It feels like only yesterday that we breathed a sigh of relief that a lackluster season of Strange New Worlds had finally been put out of its misery. Discuss it we must—and discuss it we shall! After experimenting with more formal write-ups last winter for Starfleet Academy, I’ve decided to keep things a little more casual this time around. One of our authors (most likely me) will forego a full-dress summary in favor of some initial observations to seed an open thread on the episode. Note that we will make no effort to avoid spoilers!
In the above-linked review of season 3, I suggested that Strange New Worlds was groping after some bigger contribution to the franchise than an homage to The Original Series. Last season they did not really achieve that, but this time out they took a big swing in episode one. Captain Pike is now officially responsible for giving the solar system its present shape, killing the dinosaurs, and spurring the evolution of the human race. Not bad for a bumbling, stuttering captain who can’t settle on a consistent personality or leadership style!
The idea of going back to primitive Earth and finding the solar system already inhabited with previously unknown civilizations was a clever one, and having the away team interact with dinosaurs was a fun idea. I wish there had been a little better balance between the plots, because the all-woman away team, led by an underutilized Number One, wound up just kind of standing around and mugging for the camera while all the real action happened between Pike and the Martian captain. At first, I thought there was going to be a love connection between them, and maybe we’re meant to think the Martian captain was game. But the previously-on (which took a huge risk in reminding us last season happened at all) jogged our memory that Pike is still in mourning for Batel. The universal translator also strangely ratted him out—I believe the first time that we have seen the UT foregrounded in a conversation in that way, and the first time it has been reported to have picked up an inappropriate nuance in the target language.
The full predestination paradox felt a little rushed—I didn’t notice that they themselves dropped a distress bouy until it came up in the discussion with Admiral April. We also got yet another instance of immediately classifying world-shaping events, which has been endemic in the Discovery prequel era. From a franchise perspective, I believe the real goal here is to set us up for The Original Series, where the possibility of time travel appears to come as a surprise in “Tomorrow is Yesterday.” We already needed a patch there for Enterprise’s Temporal Cold War, which was apparently kept secret—and even if it was more widely known, it did not involve any intentional time travel by our heroes, leading to the conclusion that it must be a highly advanced technology from the distant future rather than a present possibility. But the difference between the Temporal Cold War and the present episode is that nearly the entire Original Series crew was present for the latter! Are we to imagine everyone making eyes at each other off-camera in “Tomorrow is Yesterday” while they feign surprise for Kirk?
Finally, I would suggest it would have been wiser and more merciful to write Carol Kane off the show between seasons. She’s always been frame-breaking, but this season I actively feel worried for her.
Those are my observations—what do you think?
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.