“Hegemony”

omg a cliffhanger noooooooooo

They're really going to give us a cliffhanger to last (at least) two years?! Damn, that's cruel.

Might even be longer, what with the strike. Daaaaaaaaaaaaamn.

. . .

Okay, I'll just say it: I think Scotty is damn near perfectly cast, and very well-written in this appearance. I could not be more pleased. Does he need to be a part of this script? No, he does not. He's kind of shoehorned in. Also, am I bothered that they decided to shoehorn him in like this? Hell no.

I'm a little torn on the show continually introducing us to the characters who will become the classic cast before they all joined the Enterprise crew, because it seems unlikely they would all meet like this. However, we've long known from The Menagerie that the two members of the main classic cast who could have plausibly served with Pike aside from Spock are Uhura and Scotty. (It is a little out of character for Scotty not to proudly declare he was helping Spock steal the Enterprise to deliver Pike to Talos IV, which he certainly would have done had he served with Pike, but Spock could have ordered him not to as a contingency plan or something like that. It's no real obstacle.) No idea if they will have Scotty join to replace Pelia sometime next season, but they certainly can. I would be okay with it, although we barely know Pelia and I would like to know her a little better first. Also don't kill her, yeah? Just make her get more interested in something else and leave.

. . .

Chapel is the ONLY survivor of the attack on the Cayuga?! Odds a bit long on that, but sure.

. . .

Are baby Gorn sentient? It would be interesting if they're not. Just an interesting idea for a species, I mean: one that only gains sentience as it matures. Thought experiment: how do we all think that would work? Evolutionarily plausible?

. . .

I know some people are going to laugh at the unintentional hilarity of the cliffhanger teaser being Pike staring out the viewscreen not responding while his ship takes fire and Number One asks him point blank, "Orders, Captain!" Because the final image of the season is . . . Pike not giving orders when he needs to give orders. I admit, I laughed. It's a narrative conceit meant to build suspense for the cliffhanger, but given the discourse around Pike this season . . . yikes, that was an unfortunate choice.

. . .

Okay, I'm going to say it. Despite what I just typed earlier in this post, I want the show to introduce McCoy at some point. Not to join the crew, but just to see him meet Spock for the first time. Maybe Kirk too. But mainly Spock. He's the remaining member of the "core trinity" of the TOS cast, and if they've gone this far, it would be almost disrespectful of them to ignore introducing him. A one-off appearance is fine.

Maybe we can even finally meet Joanna McCoy.

. . .

And if you're going to do McCoy, just do Sulu to round it off. Another single appearance.

(I think Chekov would be stretching all credulity as he's like 14 at the moment. Janice Rand? They wouldn't bother.)

. . .

The "old midwestern planet" aesthetic of the colony planet was a little silly but also very TOS. And not totally implausible. If we ever get to colonize space and space is anything like the Star Trek universe, niche groups of people who want to live a certain way will certainly go settle planets outside Federation borders where they can live however they want. Which includes a kitschy nostalgic old midwestern style, sure. I mean, there were only five thousand of them, anyway.

Although I do think some modern technologies would have been on display with the old world aesthetic. Can mix those two, but hard to foreswear all progress altogether on a world that is just being settled.

. . .

The scene where Chapel happens to look past the viewport and notice the Enterprise is out there is so well done. I felt emotions. Of course, it's impossible, as the ship would be merely a speck at space distances, and not lit, and definitely not oriented on a "right side up" 180 degree plane to a listing saucer section of a destroyed ship . . . but Star Trek does this all the time. We don't mind. It's a great moment.

. . .

I have been won over to the Ortegas character's side here. Melissa Navia gives 120% to whatever scant material they write for her character and it shows on screen and she has earned my sympathy accordingly. She clearly loves this job. And she can act. Give her something real next season, okay, writers?

. . .

So we see an adult Gorn finally. We figured they would be slow, more "tank-like" than the others to keep with their portrayal in Arena and how Kirk could possible engage in fisticuffs with one. Not sure this portrayal keeps with that, although it is in a space suit the whole time. The tactical advantage of the tail alone . . . well, reptiles sometimes lose their tails and have to grow them back. Lucky that had recently happened to the one Kirk fought, I guess.

. . .

Anson Mount's acting made it clear he knew why the baby Gorn had turned away from Batel while making her tell him. You could see it on his face. Well done.

. . .

But as a test pilot he shouldn't have reacted the way he did to the shuttle falling when even Sam Kirk is keeping it together better than him. I know, dramatically, it's because he's in the chair next to the pilot so it falls to him to sell the severity of the action in the scene for the camera. But it plays into the "Pike is famous for being good at these things, really?" angle that has been cropping up. At least they didn't ignore that he was a test pilot and commented on it in the script.

. . .

They could have thrown around a few more "sirs" in this episode, too. I agree that the omission of these from the ends of lines of dialogue feels deliberate. A more military environment goes against the atmosphere the show wants to portray for what working on the Enterprise is like, clearly. It's a choice. And mostly that's okay, but when the red alert lights flashing, it's time for people to start working that address back into their speech imo. Leave it out up until then, but by adding them back in, you also establish the seriousness and danger of what the crew is facing. Easy and effective shortcut to upping the drama. You can have that one for free, writers.

. . .

So what all do we want to see for season 3? I want the show to circle back to Sybok from season 1. I can see many interesting storytelling possibilities there . . .

2.5 out of 4 Stars for me....

1. There's just no suspense or tension when you KNOW that Spock and Christine Chapel (even Pike) will survive to TOS. Worse, Chapel is the ONLY person to survive on the USS Cayuga? Please.

2. Of course Marie survives too though thousands of other colonists did not.

3. Lt. JG Montgomery Scott - again the ONLY person to survive from his doomed ship (rolling eyes). Sure,why not? We've already introduced Kirk, so let's get all the chess pieces for TOS lined up because we all know where this is going.

4. A cliffhanger? Really? Between the guild strikes and the typical glacial pace of modern television production we'll be lucky to see the conclusion in 2-3 years!

I mean, in classic Trek we knew that our characters played by actors in the opening credits would survive whatever peril they were in every week barring an actor deciding to leave the show, which was always known by any fan in advance. And it never affected the suspense of the stories. The drama was not in whether they survived, but the how of it. I don't accept this as a criticism of SNW because it is a prequel. It's exactly like any other Trek save Discovery.

Who all died in classic Trek? Yar, because Denise Crosby left. Jadzia, because Terry Farell left. That's it.

We've already had Hemmer die in SNW, and many of us argue he shouldn't have! It felt wrong. It still feels tonally wrong, to me.

"I don't accept this as a criticism of SNW because it is a prequel" is quite arrogant. That's YOUR opinion, one I do not share. It always amazes me how intolerant Star Trek fans can be of other opinions even though we pride ourselves son being tolerant of different viewpoints.

As viewers I don't think prequels should be spared criticism because we know about future events. That's one of the inherent dangers of creating a prequel and why the producers of "Enterprise" were at least smart enough to establish completely new characters in a setting far removed from TOS - Not literally just a few years beforehand which has, and will most likely, continue to limit any true narrative character arcs.

If you're searching for a counter argument, then consider TNG "Best of Both Worlds." That cliffhanger truly left the viewer in suspense for months and it was all many of us were discussing during that long summer. Of course Picard would return, but it really felt as if it were possible that character had been killed and the studio played into that by refusing to deny rumors that Patrick Stewart was looking for an exit.

The cliffhanger we just watched from SNW truly pales in comparison.

Umm. "I don't accept this" is very clearly language that signifies it is MY opinion, yes. You gave your opinion; I gave mine in response. That's called having a discussion. Get back to me when I write something like "your opinion is stupid, you stupidface" as to me being intolerant of your opinion, k? Or "arrogant," when I went and laid out my rationale rather than just proclaiming a bald statement as if it's truth. Sheesh.

. . .

Four posts into the thread for this kind of crap to pop up must be some kind of record.

I loved the colony design. It kinda makes sense. There's an endless number of planets out there, so why not found a colony for your weird LARP phantasies? "Hey, you wanna join my colony reminiscent of Victorian England? There'd be bustle skirts, butlers and bat'leths."

I had a feeling right from the urgency of the first minutes that they were setting this episode up as SNW's version of "The Best of Both Worlds". And the elements are certainly there. A superior enemy. A plan to fool them with technobabble. A crewmember held hostage -- just this time it's split up between Captain Batel being infected, and La'an, M'Benga and Kirk (and colonists) captured. And a cliffhanger. I had hoped that they wouldn't do cliffhangers in this show -- especially season-ending cliffhangers when we don't even know when the next season will air. (2025 maybe?) Or if they did it then at least do it DS9 style where it's more like a teaser of things to come instead of an actual cliffhanger.

Oh well, at least they didn't kill off Batel immediately, and I hope they won't do it in season 3. I'd like to see more of her and of her relationship with Pike because I think it's a really interesting relationship dynamic for a Starfleet captain to have a truly equal partner.

I'm not quite keen on the physics in this episode. Would the Gorn really be fooled by the Cayuga's saucer suddenly "naturally" accelerating towards the planet from the orbit of its moon? That already bugged me in Star Trek Into Darkness when the ship suddenly "fell" towards Earth. Yes, this is a Science *Fiction* show but they could really use a science advisor for this basic stuff.

Finally, I wonder if every season will bring in another TOS cast member, and who will be next. Sulu? (he'd be an astroscientist though, unless they ignore the 2nd TOS pilot episode) Cadet Chekov? Bones? Janice Rand?

This all sounds a bit negative but I actually enjoyed the episode. It wasn't the best episode of the season but still above average. I just hope that season 3 will come rather sooner than later.

Also, yes, the kind of prequel SNW is "limits" narrative character arcs because writers have to write toward a predetermined end. It does not "eliminate" them, however.

And Batel, being an armed Starfleet captain with combat training and experience, would have a much better chance of survival in an attack like this than a few thousand civilians, yes. It was a ground fight; the colony was not orbitally bombarded which would have made her survival a matter of pure chance. At least one of her ensigns also survived. And she didn't survive unharmed, either. She and her crew members saved who they could with the resources they had to hand, then fortified and held a makeshift bunker. Seems tactically sound to me and their success plausible.

@ UESPA_Sputnik

"I'm not quite keen on the physics in this episode. Would the Gorn really be fooled by the Cayuga's saucer suddenly "naturally" accelerating towards the planet from the orbit of its moon? That already bugged me in Star Trek Into Darkness when the ship suddenly "fell" towards Earth. Yes, this is a Science *Fiction* show but they could really use a science advisor for this basic stuff."

Failing life support systems on a destroyed but mostly intact ship might cause compartments to vent atmosphere, or a thruster to randomly fire, or something like that, that would change the orbital trajectory and propel the wreckage toward the planet. They made the movement look uncontrolled and as if it would impact nowhere near the beacon before taking control at the last moment and steering it toward the beacon. Which the Gorn recognized as a deliberate attack because they opened fire on the Enterprise as soon as it had happened.

But I agree that the physics is all kinds of wonky in many ways, yes.

Best episode of the series to date.

The action was genuinely intense, every character had a part to play, the introduction of a familiar face was handled excellently, and the conundrum involved diplomatic considerations and teching the tech alike (and even a conference room scene).

Yes, it is incredibly far fetched that there was only one survivor from the Cayuga, and that there has never been a more conveniently located environmental suit on any ship in all the history of Starfleet, but these, and other minor matters (e.g., Kirk's perfectly timed meeting arrival, and the crew's enthusiasm for retribution), are truly nitpicks.

I also agree with @Jeffrey's Tube, that 'the drama is not in whether the main characters survive, but in how they went about it,' and this episode delivered in abundance with regard to the latter.

Great episode. Great way to close a very solid season.

I don't think Chapel was likely the only remaining survivor; she was probably the only one who was in a state (according to the scenario written by the writers) to be able to both stabilize life support in their section, and put on an EV suit in order to escape. In that sense, she was the only survivor that was "saveable". Agreeing with the rest of you all--a bit far fetched statistically, but that's how you keep a main character on contract alive.

I do agree with Jeffrey about Chapel and her look out the window. Something I noticed especially this season is the amazing ability of Jess Bush to make you feel emotions with just a look.

I forgot after last season and this episode just how much of the Gorn was done practically with puppetry. It very much reminded me of the original Jurassic Park movies--and then I realized after watching the Ready Room that most of the effects artists came from Stan Winston's shop.

In re the complaint that Chapel and her "prequel plot armor" survived a near-impossible situation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

I don't really have a problem with their moving the saucer with rockets (I actually appreciate that Spock acknowledged the issues and talked about nudging it in ways that make it look simply like a decaying orbit), but I did wonder why Spock was the only one who could accomplish that mission? I know Vulcans are tougher than humans, but that basically looked like a pretty standard spacewalk (standard, at least, for a highly trained astronaut like the George Clooney character in GRAVITY).

I do however have a physics nitpick. When they were freefalling toward the surface in the shuttle, everyone was slammed back in their chairs like they were undergoing massive acceleration. But they were just falling along with the shuttle, so absent artificial gravity they actually should have just been floating. Maybe when they first hit the atmosphere, leaning forward a little bit from the DEceleration, not back.

@Jeffrey's Tube: "They're really going to give us a cliffhanger to last (at least) two years?! Damn, that's cruel."

Yeah, that's rough. And yet, I still give this episode very high marks (4 stars, one of the best of the series). I did the same for the first DUNE movie, and the recent SPIDER-VERSE film, so fair's fair.

"Okay, I'll just say it: I think Scotty is damn near perfectly cast, and very well-written in this appearance."

Cosigned.

"Are baby Gorn sentient? It would be interesting if they're not. Just an interesting idea for a species, I mean: one that only gains sentience as it matures. Thought experiment: how do we all think that would work? Evolutionarily plausible?"

I mean, it happens with all sentient species, including our own (a blastocyst isn't sentient, except insofar as we credit panpsychism for the possibility that all matter in the universe may have some level of consciousness, which isn't actually as crazy as it sounds). But when they are able to run around and hunt? Nah.

"It's a narrative conceit meant to build suspense for the cliffhanger, but given the discourse around Pike this season . . . yikes, that was an unfortunate choice."

I was actually much happier with the portrayal of Pike in this episode than in the rest of the season.

"Although I do think some modern technologies would have been on display with the old world aesthetic."

They were on display. You must not have been looking closely.

@Stewart: "It always amazes me how intolerant Star Trek fans can be of other opinions even though we pride ourselves son being tolerant of different viewpoints."

I don't think you're being fair to JT here. He was just disagreeing with you, same as you are doing with him.

(This may shock those who have seen me tangle with JT in the past, but I generally wiped the floor with him so I think I can afford to be magnanimous.)

I do agree that there are inherently some problems with doing prequels, but they can still sometimes achieve greatness (cf. BETTER CALL SAUL).

UESPA_Sputnik: "There's an endless number of planets out there, so why not found a colony for your weird LARP phantasies? 'Hey, you wanna join my colony reminiscent of Victorian England? There'd be bustle skirts, butlers and bat'leths.'"

100%.

Superman & Lois ended on a cliffhanger. But that show hadn’t been renewed at the time the episode was filmed. It eventually was, but with a huge reduction in the budget, which lead to more than half the cast being cut. And then the strikes happened which added even more uncertainty to when the show would return and what it might look like. So when this episode of SNW also ended on a cliffhanger, my first thought was how the strike and the financial issues with Paramount+ might impact the resolution of this storyline and what season 3 will look like. It’s a shame that real life events clouded the impact that last moment had on me.

We know Sam Kirk and M’Benga will survive. And normally, we’d expect La’an and Ortegas would too. But I have this big fear that by the time season 3 goes into production, some actors might be cut from the show or reduced to recurring roles. This cliffhanger, sadly, makes it easier for non-Legacy characters to be written out.

As for the episode itself, it felt a bit too much like Jurassic Park. I’m glad to see Pike acting more captain-ish again, though, as others have pointed out, the ending makes him look indecisive. BOBW, the gold standard of cliffhangers, showed Riker making the hard choice the episode had been building up to. I wish the writers had made Pike withdraw the Enterprise. It wouldn’t have been as dramatic as Riker saying “Fire”, but it would’ve served the character better while still preserving the cliffhanger ending.

Other thoughts:

- The introduction of Scotty didn’t bother me though I did have trouble understanding some of the actor’s lines.
- I’m glad the episode addressed the Spock/Chapel relationship without spending too much time on it.
- I was expecting Ortegas to have more to do. But once again, she was shortchanged, making it easier for the show to write her out of season 3.
- The production values on this show continue to be great. But that’s why I worry about future budget cuts and how cheap the show could end up looking.
- Overall, a decent episode but not the best of the season.

We do know that in the next episode Pike will resolve everything by cooking for the Gorns, right? right!

There was a looooot of plot armor in the episode!

I get the budget limitations, but the intro with the happiest colony made a la 20th century US, was if it was taken directly from a political ad about the American Dream.

So they threw the saucer to the planet without really knowing how many people might be still alive inside it. Well, as long as Chapel is alive, who cares about the rest? The latter must have eagle's eyes managing to detect it was Spock inside the suit.

We were laughing out loud when the landing team was carefully walking in the colony's streets with their suits lights on. "Hey hey, here we are!".
But they turned them off once they were inside a building (cause they had bigger ones on already).
And what about Kirk's bro storming in during the officers meeting, just to say his cliche line? Well, they are all pals in this ship, no one knocking!


On a good note, their Scotty is really good! Sometimes I think he tried a bit too hard with the accent to the point his mouth opening too look a tad weird, but I'll get this as a part of his charm.

So, a cliffhanger? For a 10 episodes season that might take 2 years to come back (with or without the strikes)?

Overall as a season, I will give it a generous 2 out of 5. The writing was very weak, we only got 3 strange new worlds out of 10 episodes and for reasons we can only guess (new baby?) the lead wasn't as much present for a lead. Still better than Disco. Barely.

SCOTTY !! 👍👍

CLIFFHANGER???? 👎👎👎👎

@theBgt: I don't think it's fair to complain about the colony being cheap-looking, when the giant Gorn ship hovering above the colony looked completely awesome on my 70" 4K TV.

Only Spock can place those rockets. Why? Because they need him over there to connect with Chapel. No attempt to throw us some kind of rationale. Just incredibly lazy.

I thought Scotty was quite good, although if you care about canon it’s getting a bit ridiculous that Kirk might literally be the only member of the Enterprise crew to have never heard of the Gorn.

“although if you care about canon it’s getting a bit ridiculous that Kirk might literally be the only member of the Enterprise crew to have never heard of the Gorn.“

Actually it’s incredibly easy to care about canon and not care even a little bit about that.

@Stewart

Faulting the episode that was completed way before the writers strike was a thing at all for having a cliffhanger is pretty ridiculous.

I figured Spock was the only one who could properly drop the saucer from orbit because he was the only one who could make the complex calculations required without the aid of the Enterprise computer. In Picard S2 they said that he was one of the only beings capable of calculating the Slingshot Maneuver (the Borg Queen being another), and this strikes me as the same thing.

SCOTTY!!!

I'm so bored with the Gorn being generic monster villains in this show. Every attempted "arc villain" in the previous Star Trek series - Klingons, Romulans, (briefly) Ferengi, Cardassians, Dominion, Xindi, even the Borg - had some kind of depth or defining personality trait to them that made them fun to watch on the screen and gave the cast interesting challenges. Instead it feels like they took what was hinted to be a really interesting civilization in TOS and turned them into the creatures from Alien. The worst sin of all this is just that it's incredibly dull.

Good to see Scotty
I liked the episode
But too cinematic

The close up of Pike at the end, in an attempt to mimic the cliff hanger from BOTW, was truly pathetic. "Creatively bankrupt" doesn't begin to describe this show.

@Jeffery's Tube:

"Just an interesting idea for a species, I mean: one that only gains sentience as it matures."

Go back to 1989 and listen to me talk about my Ninja Turtles Action Figures and Super Mario for 3 hours, and then meet me back here.

Also, I might not be the only one who noticed this, but the only thing missing from that Cliffhanger was "Activate the Omega 13!!"

Still, it ain't bad. S2 of SNW stands up on its own legs pretty well, I think.

Fuck. If out of all people, Boimler&Mariner can agree on some­thing, why can’t Golds­man, Kurtz­mann and Myers also? Cliff­hangers are the worst, and they don’t get any bet­ter by the writers’ strike that will likely delay S3 to some­thing like fall 2025 or worse.

This was a mostly enjoy­able and grip­ping epis­ode with signi­fi­cant pro­duc­tion values. I al­ways liked Marie Batel, so I am in­vest­ed in her fate, and I really hope she’ll make it (please no more trauma for Chef Pike). The grim fate of the colo­nists was pain­ful to watch, we’re talk­ing thou­sands of dead ci­vi­li­ans here. At the same time there are the first in­di­ca­ti­ons that Star­feet has still a lot to learn about the Gorn, Pike is very ef­fec­ti­ve as the voice of hope, se­cond­ed by April (“‘Monster’ is a word to de­scri­be tho­se who don’t un­der­stand us”). While I very much ap­pre­ci­ate the at­tempts to make the Gorn more multi­dimen­si­onal, this of course burns con­ti­nui­ty further down to embers, be­cau­se I see no way how “Arena” could have hap­pen­ed after this epis­ode. Why didn’t the writers come up with a new ant­ago­nist race of their own making?

This leads directly into one of my main points of cri­ti­cism, not only for this epis­ode, but for the en­ti­re sea­son and per­haps show: It is so deri­va­ti­ve. Last week they rip­ped off “Once More, With Feel­ing”, but in space, the week be­fore “The Wound­ed”, but darker, and before that it was “Trials and Tribble-ati­ons”, but two-di­men­si­o­nal — you see where this is going. This time, it was again Rid­ley Scott (21:20, 41:05), which I think is fine be­cause he is one of the best, but they also copied shots from much lesser films by Ro­land Em­me­rich (04:04) or even David Ef­fing Fin­cher (42:07) — how many of us have al­most suc­cess­ful­ly for­got­ten about Alien³, be­fore that re­mind­er came. Others on the Inter­net noted si­mi­la­ri­ties to the Reapers in Fire­fly, which I have never seen.

Also, I have to be that killjoy who points out the a demarcation line between an planet and its moon make no sense, because the planet revolves around its sun and the moon around the planet. When Nurse Chapel, the only survivor on the Cayuga due to meter-thick plot armour, knocked against the transparent aluminum window, I immediately thought “In space, no one can hear you knock”. I was disappointed she didn’t try to save any of the unconscious people on the Cayuga before her Ex steers the wreck into a crash landing that none can survive.

And how did Batel get her mayday message off the planet? She couldn’t even talk to her own ship. And why was she so chum­my to Chapel in the begin­ning, and what was Chapel even doing the­re? Did I miss her transfer to the Cayuga last week?

So, again, a mixed bag, as was most of the season. Be­cause I am a huge LD fan, I enjoyed “Those Old Sci­ent­ists” un­con­di­ti­o­nal­ly, and there were some other most­ly good epis­odes in par­ti­cu­lar early in the sea­son. But I find SNW in ge­ne­ral too si­mi­lar to Vo­ya­ger, be­cause it trod the paths al­ready trod­den, and mis­sed op­por­tu­ni­ties of taking roads never taken be­fore. A some­what nice show which could never mea­sure up to its own po­ten­tial given by the great cast. I wish it were otherwise.

To end on a more positive note: I liked Scotty, the actor play­ing him is do­ing a fine job. Yeah, his ar­ri­val here (“the closest pla­net” — really dumb) is as con­triv­ed as al­most every­thing in the epis­ode, but I get used to it. On the other hand, the Bri­tish pro­nun­ci­a­tion [lɛfˈtɛnənt] made me really chuck­le. Finally, some attention to detail at all!

Introducing all these TOS recasts will be pointless when either Strange new worlds gets canceled or the actors age too quickly and they can't do their TOS reboot you know they're inching toward.

Sam Weasly will be 50 eventually playing a 30 year old Kirk!

I feel I should have liked this one more than I actually did.

It started strong, I liked the colony and the terrifying arrival of the Gorn. But like previous posters noted: when you know all the main characters will survive because this is a prequel, where's the dramatic tension? The only one I was slightly concerned for was Ortegas, but so far so good.

Where was Pelia during the initial senior staff meeting? And is every character who's ever held a hyperspanner a former student of hers? Still, it's clear now Pelia will inevitably be handing over the reigns in Engineering to Scotty.

As for that cliffhanger ending... *sighs* There's no telling when Strange New will return. The way the strike is going, it might be sometime in 2025. I would have prefered starting season 3 with a clean slate.

Pedantic critiques by folks in the comments as if the same plot holes, plot armors and convenient bits aren’t present in all prior iterations of Trek is silly.

If you took the same lens you take to new Trek back through to eps of TNG or DS9, you’d come up with equally pedantic gripes.

You only forgive them in those series because they are 90s Trek and your nostalgia for them makes them bulletproof for you.

Always some good lols in the comments here, including from some unfortunate FoDs who clearly come here to complain because doing so is frowned upon in FoD communities.

I don’t dislike the cliffhanger as a plot device, generally speaking. The episode had me until Pike was standing there gawping at the screen not knowing what to do next. Bad characterization on the part of the writers. Generally speaking, they’ve spent two seasons of SNW and one of DISCO establishing Pike as the Get It Done Guy, and now he’s presented almost completely out of character as the bumbling anti-Riker, or, alternatively, like the helpless alt-Kirk who apologizes to his crew before Marcus and the Vengeance blow them to smithereens.

Really sloppy.

So. …. Enjoyed this episode, but the only quibble I have is that Star Fleet should douse the white lights and use some sort of Enhanced NVGs. I mean we have that in our time. By the time of SNW the could just be glasses with really thick frames.

A decent enough season finale, but not up to the standard of last year’s “Quality Of Mercy”. I say this because “Quality” was able to successfully use SNW’s prequel status to draw out a sense of dread from a situation we knew was meant to have a good outcome. How would Pike’s timeline meddling turn into disaster? What would the price be?

“Hegemony”, on the other hand, asks only a question that a million other episodes have asked before: How Will Our Heroes Get Out Of This One™? It doesn’t prevent “Hegemony” from being a *good* episode of TV. It’s just not a very inventive one either, and there’s not the same amount of character drama in watching Pike try to save his girlfriend as there is in watching him wrestle with the question of destiny itself.

As opposed to “Quality”, the prequel factor is also a detriment here, as is the use of the Gorn as the primary series antagonist. We already know there is not going to be a quadrant-reshaping war between the Gorn and the Federation, therefore this plot doesn’t have the heft it should. Making it a different, new alien species might have been able to give the cliffhanger some more juice.

There's also a number of plot contrivances here, the most glaring of which is Chapel being the only survivor on the Cayuga. I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

Everything else about the episode is on point: as usual, SNW’s production values and the talents of the cast are on full display. But that almost goes without saying at this stage (even though it’s important that we still do).

A decent episode to close out a decent season. Which brings me to looking at SNW season 2 as a whole. Despite having the same broad mix of genres and high week-to-week quality as season 1, I think season 2 is a weaker effort overall, and it’s the same thing that sank ENT’s second season, and pretty much all of VOY: where is this all going? SNW has done a much, much better job with character development than both of those shows, but the plotting has left much to be desired. Some of this can be blamed on the show’s setting so close to TOS - the writers have boundaries on how much they can shake up the bigger picture without alienating the audience - but it can’t excuse everything.

The simple fact is that SNW didn’t *have* a bigger picture this year, and the middling plots at time veered the show dangerously close to just being the soap opera that DS9 was often accused of being. Don’t get me wrong, I love me a bit of interpersonal drama and romance, but I also like my science fiction to have a bit more science fiction in it. With the exception of “Among The Lotus Eaters”, we spent a grand total of about five minutes on strange new worlds this year - the Illyrian colony in the excellent “Ad Astra Per Aspera”, the war-torn planet flashbacks in “Under The Cloak Of War”, and the colony in “The Broken Circle”.

Speaking of the premiere: it gave us an interesting look of how the Klingon war had reshaped the bigger picture for the galaxy. It made the world look bigger than just the Starship Enterprise. It made me hope that we’d get a little more large-scale plotting this season. Sadly, it was not to be.

So what’s the prescription for season three? I have some bullet points:

* Give the Enterprise a definitive mission to give the show an overarching direction. A new sector of space to explore, perhaps. A long-term project to bring a new world into the Federation, maybe? The development of some new prototype technology? Show us a reason why Pike’s Enterprise is just as legendary as Kirk’s, instead of just telling us.

* Take Pike out of his comfort zone more often and make him bare his teeth. Anson Mount is a great actor, but the writers seemed very content to just let Pike be Cool Space Dad this year. “Among The Lotus Eaters” showed us that underneath his training and experience lurks a dangerous man if you stand in his way. Let’s explore that space a little bit.

* Give Spock a little more dignity. I enjoyed “Charades”, as well as last year’s “Spock Amok”, but let’s see Vulcan society and culture explored with a little more seriousness for his next outing. If nothing else, it would be a change of space.

I originally said that what the show needed in season 2 was more original creations. Broadly speaking, we actually got that this year: Illyrian society was fleshed out more, we met a bunch of intriguing new characters, and some of the one-off concepts were a hoot, particularly the Lower Decks crossover and the musical. Now I think what we need is more cohesion amongst all these elements.

If SNW never came back for season three, I’d say it had been a very good show and criminal it didn’t get more episodes. What I want to be able to say at the end of season three - whenever that actually comes along - is that it’s the best new Trek show since DS9. I genuinely think it could get there.

@ SlackerInc
I don't think it's fair to complain about the colony being cheap-looking, when the giant Gorn ship hovering above the colony looked completely awesome on
my 70" 4K TV.
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No no, it wasn't the cheap-looking (was it?), it was just blissfully annoying.
"Look how happy we are in this 20th century Midwestern whatever US little town. The kids are laughing, and there is a barber shop!"


@Mal01
"Pedantic critiques by folks in the comments as if the same plot holes, plot armors and convenient bits aren’t present in all prior iterations of Trek is silly."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-maybe at some point you get tired of the "same old same"
-maybe at some point you can't keep forcing yourself liking something because it has Star Trek in its title
-maybe the other series had something better that made the "same old same" tolerable

I think the Kzinti would have been a much better antagonist in SNW than the Gorn. It probably wouldn't have been horribly difficult to negotiate their inclusion in the series. They were in TAS (twice), mentioned in Picard S1, and a Kzin makes a somewhat regular appearance in the Lower Decks as a Star Fleet officer.

The writers have done spock/chapel no favours in season 2, they are still not even writing spock/chapel close to okay. I think they will go down as one of the most hated and controversial trek couples in trek fandom when all of this is over.

Redshirt.com already wrote an article, last week that the show got the romance wrong after episode 9, I wonder how they feel now after episode 10.

I am also seeing the spock apology thing getting so much criticism on reddit, jammer reviews and trek bbs that can be very spock/chapel friendly but you have fans say they are all tired of the story line and they need to wrap it up and spock did not need to apologise.

Episode 9, did assassinate the relationship, episode 10 did not handle the aftermath better. They should have had Chapel apologising not Spock. I think that would have helped her character and made her more vulnerable and likeable post episode 9.

The fact that this show chose to add poor feminism to the spock/chapel story line that always has the man always in the wrong...needing to apologise all the time has been a let down. Also doing this with a Vulcan character should have been a no no. It is so illogical. I will not even have a human male apologise if I was dumped in public. It just makes no sense.

Sigh.... I hope season 3 can bring spock/chapel to a respectful end, when they do finally talk. they should end the romance like adults before she meets Korby.

The last two episodes did them no favours and just proved why they have haters.

You know shit is bad when you have the most heterosexual trek fan boys who have given chapel a pass for so long and will never see spock as gay calling out how awful the spock/chapel romance is because they hated that Spock had to apologise.

Star Trek has always been liberal, progressive even moderate when dealing with other races but the series has been hijacked by far left people and I am not a fan of when things go far left or far right. SNW is way too far left in politics, this is why Spock has been constantly humiliated in the last 2 episodes by Chapel because their goal is to mock and devalue men and show men as weaker than women.

Usually people dislike a ship because they like another ship, but I think I now dislike chapel/spock because they represent an extreme political agenda that does more harm than good. this is a far cry from Kirk and Uhura sharing the first interracial kiss.

Loved this episode - the homage to Alien movement trackers being up there.

I paused and examined the image the Gorn sent and the additions to it in the ready room. The remains of the saucer section of the Cayuga were on the Federation side of the demarkation line, albeit within Gorn sensor range.

There is no reason they couldn't have sent shuttlecraft to inspect that part of the wreckage and look for survivors. And at the same time planted thrusters. Spock's assertion that there were pockets of oxygen really warranted more exploration before using the saucer section as a weapon.

Also, am I missing something or is the Gorn destroying the Cayuga not an act of war, whether it happened inside or outside Federation space?

Finally, the decades-long hesitation at the end of the episode was too much. It could have been depicted in a way that showed it was a moment of hesitation that felt like a lifetime (kinda like Data's experience in First Contact)

Did really enjoy this though - the cold open alone gave me chills.

OK one more point: Ortegas. A whole colony just got genocided and a starfleet vessel destroyed, and she's grinning at being chosen for an away mission, grinning at getting to drive fast. Seemed tone deaf and, given the lack of focus on this particular character, she comes across as very 2D

@Sadar

What is it with Star Trek fans who think there’s a political agenda behind every writing decision? Here’s a newsflash. Sometimes writers make bad choices not because they’re “far left” or “woke”, whatever that means, but simply because they’re bad writers. Your claim the show is pushing some feminist agenda is laughable. In this episode, we had not one but two male characters come to the rescue of their girlfriends. If the writers wanted to push a feminist agenda, they would’ve had Chapel save herself, not be a damsel in distress. But yeah, let’s listen to all the incels throw a tantrum because Spock apologized to Chapel instead of the other way around.

@ Sadar “… Kirk and Uhura sharing the first interracial kiss”

Please could someone enlighten me why this moment in “Plato’s Step­children” is considered important and always brought up as a testimony to Trek’s progressive nature? Since I am a Euro­pean who doesn’t even know what ‘race’ means (except some kind of super­stition or pseu­do­sci­ence or social hyste­ria), I am tho­rough­ly confused.

The kiss lacked any romantic component, it was meant as a pu­nish­ment for Kirk, and it was not chosen or desired by either of the two. More­over, there were both Cha­pel and Uhura present, and Parmen chose Uhura for the forced kiss, which could be inter­preted that Parmen (or the writer, Meyer Dolinsky) thinks that is more pu­nish­ment for Kirk to kiss Uhura than Cha­pel. In either case, I see no in­­di­ca­­tion of any anti-racist mes­sage in that epis­ode, it’s re­al­ly about body auto­nomy and consent.

A better example for Trek’s dealing with racism is IMHO “The Sav­age Cur­tain”, where the Lin­­coln re­pli­ca calls Uhura a ‘negress’, albeit a charming one. To that, she replies maturely “You see, in our century we’ve learned not to fear words”. I think these are wise words, but the 21ˢᵗ cen­tury is per­haps not ripe for them.

I've been pondering, more than the subject deserves, how any of this Gorn stuff can possibly be squared with TOS (without involving mind wipes, time travel, Q/Trelane type intervention, etc). This is what I've come up with...

TLDR: Aliens meets Krall from Star Trek Beyond meets V the Final Battle

Let's say that the "Gorn" we are encountering in SNW are not the Gorn. Instead they are an invasive, parasitic species that happens to have hit the (real) Gorn first. The Gorn home planet was long ago, unknown to the rest of the galaxy, taken over and turned a breeding planet for these parasites, who have been using Gorn hosts to reproduce. In the process, the spawn have taken on some of the characteristics of the host, i.e. being vaguely reptilian, but also retaining many of the original species' properties (tails?) and their intent to TAKE OVER THE GALAXY.

They then spread out into the galaxy using the Gorn tech, ships, etc (possibly enhanced with some of their own tech, e.g. the enormous vessel that invaded the colony's skies this week (and then disappeared because reasons)). So all SNW and previous Starfleet encounters with what they thought were the Gorn have actually been with the "Gorn," including La'an's experiences.

So let's say in the S3 premiere (coming to your screens in April of 2026) that Batel's parasite bursts out but is contained and studied. It initially seems to be the same as the "Gorn" we've seen, but as it grows and is studied it takes on some less reptilian and more human characteristics/DNA/whatever because it was born of a human host and all of the above is figured out.

Our heroes thus realize that the "Gorn" aren't really Gorn and the entire galaxy will be replaced by these parasites. A technobabble solution involving the humanoid "Gorn" baby is devised and the parasites are eradicated everywhere including on the Gorn home world. The (real) Gorn transmit a cryptic "thanks but stay out" message, so that they will not be seen in the (rubber) flesh until "Arena."

Undecided: What happens to the "Gorn" baby and whether Batel survives. Leaning toward baby dies, but Batel lives, contrary to the usual "fridging" narrative. She tells Chris to take a hike however because their relationship is a dead end; he doesn't push back because he knows it is indeed a dead end in ways she doesn't. He retires the apron (tosses it in the fire maybe?) and decides to be a Captain instead of a cook.

@Aaron

The Federation LOVES looking the other way when a hostile species commits what should be an act of war. They'll do it with the Romulans multiple times in both TOS and TNG, for example. They'll figure out a way to do it with the Gorn despite all of the people who have been killed, too.

I'm not sure why Pike needed to stand there slack jawed at the end since the choice was clear. The Enterprise is outnumbered, outgunned, and has no backup nearby. Of course you retreat, regroup, and figure out a clever way to save the kidnapped people. You can't come to the rescue if you've been blown to bits.

SADAR
"in the last 2 episodes by Chapel because their goal is to mock and devalue men and show men as weaker than women"

Wrong
What? Scotty was the best in this episode. But does it matter?
Spock saved Chapel. But then Chapel saved Spock. Does it really matter?
Spock was the one who could manage the last 15 mins. But if it was T'Pol, she would have done it too
Spock apologising is fine. In fact, it's LOGICAL. Spock isn't fully human and he is unsure how to act as human. An apology can defuse tension.
Pike wanted to save the people. How is that weak?
Sam rushed into the briefing room to take part in the rescue. How is that weak?
But who cares?
If they do the job well, who f-ing cares?

Ignore Sadar because the comment sounds like provocation.

Have we all forgotten what happened in the 2nd episode? Of course Pike was hesitant. He was involved in the first instance of this episode and he needed or wanted to save them. If he retreats, he will have probably killed those people. If he stays, he is outnumbered. It might sound like a false dilemma, but it's a dilemma

@Cynic

That’s nice and all but the Gorn that popped out of the non reptilian alien in “All Those Who Wander” last season looked exactly the same. Your explanation also comes off too similar to Alien mythology.

@Dahj’s DigitalGhost

I’m sorry but that’s absolutely absurd.

@theBgt

“-maybe at some point you get tired of the "same old same"
-maybe at some point you can't keep forcing yourself liking something because it has Star Trek in its title
-maybe the other series had something better that made the "same old same" tolerable“

Nobody is forcing anyone to like SNW. The majority of people who watch it like it because it’s an objectively well made TV show on every level and only completely delusional people grasp at straws to claim otherwise. 99% of criticisms you find anywhere of this show just put on full display how media illiterate society has become these days. I mean above someone was complaining that “why did Spock have to be the one to go” as if it was some major plot hole, but in that exact scene it’s explained. Whether someone likes the explanation is arbitrary as all hell. Then just above we have someone crying over feminism just because Spock said sorry to a girl he likes, and people are crying about the dramatic pause at the end of the episode like it assassinates Pike’s character. It’s absolutely embarrassingly lame outrage culture mentality to think that of a brief seconds pause, that canonically fits with every episode we have had of the character up to date. Don’t believe me? Look no further than Pike and Kirk’s argument in A Quality of Mercy over a seconds delay in orders.

Pike went there to save two people, one of which is infected with Gorn eggs and may not survive, and then lost three members of his bridge crew instead. If you can’t give the guy a break for the cliffhanger ffs stop watching television.

TOS The Naked Time. How many times did Spock say sorry?
Google it.

> ...it seems unlikely they would all meet like this.

I guess that depends on how you approach it.

As long-time fans, we're seeing it as sprinkling in characters we know into a situation to force them into the story. That IS the reality of it, of course. We see their appearances as significant, as viewers, because the Enterprise and these characters, have a 'destiny' so to speak, that we're already aware of.

But... you could also come at it from the angle of: these crazy situations they've crossed paths in is WHY they're together later. People who were unrelated, entering each other's orbits and working well together. Kirk will look back on this and be like "that Spock guy I met was impressive; I've seen his work up front and I'd like him to be my first officer when I get assigned the Enterprise".

And now this Scotty guy needs a new assignment, and he gets pulled in, etc.

So yeah, it's "all too convenient", but only from our informed perspective... the big question would be: if this feels forced, what... doesn't? Random assignment?

Galadriel: "Kirk and Uhura sharing the first interracial kiss”

Please could someone enlighten me why this moment in “Plato’s Step­children” is considered important and always brought up as a testimony to Trek’s progressive nature? Since I am a Euro­pean who doesn’t even know what ‘race’ means (except some kind of super­stition or pseu­do­sci­ence or social hyste­ria), I am tho­rough­ly confused.

The kiss lacked any romantic component, it was meant as a pu­nish­ment for Kirk, and it was not chosen or desired by either of the two.
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I am happy to explain. I'm guessing that not only are you European, you are not an "original" Trek viewer like me. By which I mean, I watched the original Star Trek when it first came out - I was in my early teens. Therefore, I lived through the 60's in the United States, which is where the context for that scene came from.

I'm also guessing that when you say you don't understand race, you do actually understand that what was meant at the time - although I gather this is now questioned? - was that "white" meant you had certain facial characteristics and a pale skin, "black" meant you had slightly different facial characteristics and a dark skin, and similarly for "oriental" and "Indian" (the term native American didn't exist yet).

At that time the US was finally being forced to confront its 200-year history of oppression of people with dark skin. People who had been denied their constitutional right to vote - literally at threat of death - because of the color of their skin. People who were considered dirty and stupid because of the color of their skin. If a young Black man even looked at a white woman, he might be killed.

It had been that way for decades, but Black soldiers in World War II had experienced a sense of power and acceptance in Europe that encouraged them to hope for a better society. And young white Baby Boomers were rejecting their parents' love for tradition and fired up by Martin Luther King Jr and the Kennedy brothers. It was a major change in society's beliefs and attitudes, and such changes don't come easily.

TV always reflects the society it's created in, one way or another. At that time, it was almost unheard of for a Black actor to play any role but a servant, a fool, or a villain. That was why Dr. King persuaded Nichelle Nichols to stay in her Uhura role - because it was a unique opportunity to show a Black person not just as a respected colleague, but one who didn't need to fight her way through every day. It was literally eye-opening for the audience (and Star Trek was quite popular).

But Kirk had never even touched Uhura. Black people and white people couldn't do that! And there couldn't be a real relationship, because the show would literally have lost sponsors over it. Society wasn't ready to go THAT far. So the kiss had to happen in a forced situation, IMO. If I remember correctly, the show did lose some sponsors as a result.

I've always thought it strange that Gene Roddenberry could be so progressive about race relations and so anti-progressive, bordering on misogynistic, about women. But people are complicated, and Roddenberry was one of those people.

@Mal01: What are "FoD communities"?

@Aaron: "Also, am I missing something or is the Gorn destroying the Cayuga not an act of war, whether it happened inside or outside Federation space?"

Fair question.

@Pike's Hair: "I mean above someone was complaining that 'why did Spock have to be the one to go' as if it was some major plot hole, but in that exact scene it’s explained. Whether someone likes the explanation is arbitrary as all hell."

[raising hand] I'm the "someone", and it had nothing to do with liking or disliking an explanation. I didn't hear one at all. That's not to say there wasn't one: like anyone, I miss things sometimes. But instead of writing all that, why not just helpfully state what the explanation was? (If you just mean "I'm the only one who can do it", that's not an explanation. It's an assertion WITHOUT an explanation.)

This episode was fne. Not great, not horrible, but just ok. I think it's missing that something extra that makes it more than just an action episode. The best Star Trek action cliffhangers still had interesting character development or social commentary. "Best of Both Worlds" was exciting because of the Borg invasion and assimilation of Picard - but it still holds up because it's a character study of Riker. DS9's "Die is Cast" was one of the coolest space battles on TV - but had riveting personal dynamics between Odo and Garak. This episode was missing that.

@SlackerInc: FoD is a reference to being a "friend of DeSoto", aka a listener to the Greatest Generation / Greatest Trek podcasts by Ben Harrison and Adam Pranica. (Both of those are excellent fun if you have room in your life for a couple of weekly podcasts, BTW. They're currently making their way through Voyager, having already done TNG, DS9 and all the new shows.)

The Gorn are a race that Starfleet does not understand much about and has only had limited success communicating with. They are also highly aggressive and, technologically speaking, a real threat that Starfleet has only just begun to develop countermeasures for. Cayuga was destroyed outside of Federation space. While this could be considered an act of war by the Gorn against the Federation, realistically Starfleet would want to stop the situation from escalating, especially because they cannot be sure that from the Gorn's perspective they (Starfleet) were not the aggressors because the Gorn claim this territory, or even if they had somehow unintentionally provoked them in another manner. The map they sent with the demarcation line only further served to confuse the matter.

Although Starfleet lost one of its ships and many of its people were killed they aren't going to approach the situation in a "we were attacked so we're allowed to retaliate with no reservations" manner like they would with a race like the Klingons, whom they have better communication with and a better understanding of, because the Gorn are so alien. Starfleet's goal is, after all, to foster interspecies understanding and relationships and avoid conflicts. This was alluded to by Pike in the episode, though not focused on.

. . .

Spock said no human would be capable of placing the thrusters so therefore he had to do it. While he didn't say it was because of the need to do exacting calculations to ensure they were placed accurately, sixty years of familiarity with the character and hundreds of hours of television produced means it is probably okay to trust the audience to understand that is why. Every time Spock gets wounded he doesn't have to turn to the camera and say "I'm bleeding green because my blood is copper based!" and it's kind of the same thing, ya know? I'm surprised that some people on this site needed it explained . . . well, did you REALLY need it explained, or did you just want to nitpick because what you were actually feeling is that the scenario was too contrived just to set up Spock to be the one to rescue Chapel, and not because you did not understand the rationale for the setup? I would say it's okay to just complain about the obviousness of the setup itself and the contrivance if you want to. Because it was very much both of those things, though I personally didn't mind.

@Tim C: Oh cool, thanks!

Three stars. Decent actioner with shades of Arena’s plot about Gorn territorial disputes, but nothing very memorable here. Appreciated the brief callback in the opening to the TOS theme of Federation human colonies designed to look like old Earth.

The guy playing Scotty is just alright. No Jimmy Doohan or even Simon Pegg, but I’ve always likes the character and he’s pretty hard to mess up. The actor is way better than Captain Jim Carrey’s (Kirk) terribly twirpish miscasting. Even Ethan Peck’s Spock is growing on me a bit after existing largely as plot service in Discovery, although his characterization is still broad and a bit unfocused.

It’s hard to believe this is the end of season 2 of SNW. Lots of wild tonal shifts, lack of imagination, and incoherent universe building in this season. In an episode like this one that exists securely within the TOS universe, I find a lot to enjoy. It’s when the showrunners make me feel like I’m watching TNG with anachronistic references, when they alter the established TOS universe and characters to suit a reboot mentality, and when they fail to show me “strange new worlds” that my attention wavers and I get frustrated.

Much like the prequel stylings of Enterprise, up to 90% of this series has landed in this “Ho hum” category for me. But this episode strikes a nice balance between entertainment, new elements, and familiar TOS beats without any anachronistic in-universe howlers. Too bad it comes at the end of a season that largely bored me, but hopefully the cliffhanger sets up better things to come. At this point in Discovery, I was still enthralled with its bonkers energy and unpredictability, but nothing in SNW has truly impressed me yet. It’s just been a “meh” series for me so far — slickly produced and well acted but largely bankrupt in imagination. While it’s entertaining, this episode lacks the deeper message about conflict at the heart of Arena, and that lack of depth keeps dragging SNW down in my book.

PS — Dittos to two fellow posters here.

@modulum I’m also very tired of the Gorn being used as generic sci fi monsters post-TOS. It happened on Enterprise and now it’s happening on SNW. Yes it fits with TOS, as Arena shows the Federation epiphany that the Gorn are intelligent creatures with a just grievance. Despite all the hate that some Trek fans heap on TOS for being a relic of its cultural moment, it always treated aliens more respectfully and intelligently. Just a really unfortunate choice that the SNW writers have chosen to use the Gorn here, as it writes SNW into the corner of presenting them as one dimensional villains without developing the cultural encounter we see in the vastly superior TOS episode Arena. Boo. Hiss.

@dom I share your fatigue with how superficial SNW has been. Trek at its best should have social commentary, allegory, intelligent dialogue that makes you think more deeply about yourself and the world. Discovery tried a bit of that, but I’ve seen precious little of it in this series. SNW is aping the look and style of the Trek franchise, but it doesn’t seem to have anything to say or think out loud about. Great Star Trek is more than an action show or soap opera with character plots; even soapy TNG transcended soap opera at its best moments to have deeply thoughtful shows about timeless themes and interesting science fiction ideas. I miss the science and the sensitivity toward ideas and issues in this show; I really don’t care about the Spock-Chapel relationship or who is dating who from the original crew because I already know it’s not going anywhere.

Oh great - a frakking cliffhanger right in the middle of a frakking general strike. We should see it it’s conclusion in 2025 I guess?

Not a fan of what SNW has done to the Gorn and I have a hard time wrapping my head around all the canon violations. Scotty's not supposed to know anything of the Gorn and apparently they now have already negotiated territorial boundaries with the Federation. SNW should have just called the Gorn something else. But it seems that the Gorn will be the main antagonists in SNW, perhaps like the Borg on VOY, Dominion on DS9 etc. TOS and ENT didn't say a whole lot about the Gorn and so SNW sees an opportunity here.

As far as an episode, this was OK, the season-ending cliffhanger wasn't great with Pike apparently clueless on what to do. But at least Pike was a primary character here, with added motivated to rescue Batel. And he was not seen cooking. I'm not a fan of the actress playing Batel and her interactions with Pike just don't have the right aesthetic for Star Trek IMHO.

Also, I thought we had seen the end of Spock/Chapel with the musical episode nicely setting things up for the way they'd be on TOS. But here, SNW couldn't resist these cliche moment of the 2 holding hands in space...

And as for Scotty -- a reasonable introduction for him. He's already showing himself to be an engineering wizard, learned under the Carol Kane character and so one would have to figure S3 will bring a Sulu or McCoy etc. SNW will try and score points this way.

As for "Gorn Hegemony" that April mentioned -- I don't recall ever hearing this on classic Trek, but I do recall it from a Star Trek role-playing game I used to play in high school (nerd alert). So I found that interesting.

Pike had one optimistic idea of trying to reach the Gorn. But that went nowhere. But it would seem some kind of "civilized" communication had been reached to come up with the demarcation line. So it's a bit messy in terms of what kind of relations exist between the Federation and the Gorn -- though at the working level in person, it seems non-existent.

2.5 stars for "Hegemony" -- pretty routine action/adventure that held my attention but that went for the typical (lazy) emotional stimulus -- Batel injected with Gorn and wanting to sacrifice herself with Pike being steadfast about saving her. And then there's more Spock/Chapel, which at this stage is too much. (Just why was Spock the only one who could pull off placing the rockets on the Cayuga saucer section? Because Chapel.) I take it all those people the Gorn beamed up were injected with Gorn larvae (with the exception of Scotty).

An OK end to a weak season. S1 was much better despite having a couple of episodes that were worse than anything in S2. I wasn't sure SNW S3 was already a done deal, but I guess it is.

Excuse me, did I accidentally switch to Melrose Place or ER?? Why were there NO ALIENS, NO STRANGE NEW WORLDS or even NEW ANOMALIES!! And, NO, more GORN PORN doesn't count. At least introduce anew sister species or new anomaly related to CMEs to develop Gorn or better yet introduce a new lifeform or anomaly...and when is Hemmer coming back?

@Rahul — The "Gorn Hegemony" was mentioned by name in an episode of ENT, where an Orion captain says to Jonathan Archer, re: the alcohol they're drinking, that it originated in the space of the Gorn Hegemony, and "the less said of them, the better."

Enjoyable episode, but I’ll talk more broadly about the Spock/Chapel relationship after a recent “Eureka!” moment. Simply put, I think the writers can do anything they want with them moving forward. All they have to do is contrive a reason why the two of them must appear to be- moving forward- nothing more than cordial colleagues during work hours. Do that for the rest of SNW, which will also explain why they acted that way, outside of a few tender moments, throughout TOS, too. Then we can have them do whatever they want during private moments, vacations, and shore leaves for the remainder of SNW. Problem solved… no more having to define their relationship now based on what we “know” will happen in the future.

If Batel survives but Hemmer had to die I’m gonna be pissed. Hemmer should still be here. Also, why do we care about Batel? She’s lame.

Season 2 was successful, not as good as season 1. They did a lot of light hearted episodes and they all worked.

I hope season 3 gets a little bit more serious.

Season 3 has the benefit of all the feedback of broadcasting. I expect it has a chance to be better than the first 2 (the first 2 were filmed before the series debut).

In saying that, its going to be 2 - 3 years or more before we get it.

I am still really sketchy on the Gorn. I like the idea that they went with a different baddie than the usual empires to go to war with. But, a species that operates on such primal instinct in no way could have developed scientists, doctors, teachers, explorers, etc (with all the reason and restraint) and so on to develop space faring technology and being at the superior level they are at. At least with the Klingons we knew they had lawyers and politicians and scientists who were mocked for not being bad ass warriors but at least they existed to bring the Klingons along.

So, I am hoping they somehow reconcile that next season. Maybe all these Gorn are the created soldiers of another species of Gorn that is more in line with a sentient species that can invent and create. Who knows, but they can't keep selling them as so primal and instinctive while being so advanced in technology.

After some smart and creative episodes in the latter half of the season, Hegemony is a let down with its rote by-the-numbers plotting and bland, derivative sci-fi horror elements complete with yet another present day urban environment. SNW even lazily plunders from itself: with so few episodes per season, one wonders why it's necessary have a Gorn finale that rehashes the Gorn finale from last season.

- Surprised that Starfleet is so eager to appease the Gorn and honor every little arbitrary demand when the show has done everything possible to portray them as monstrous xenomorphs. Plus the Gorn managed to destroy one--no, two whole starships...how is that not considered an act of war?

- The whole thing with the territorial lines closely hugging the orbit of the planet seems contrived and kinda irks me

- Again with holding us in suspense over things we know will turn out just fine like Chapel surviving

- Spock wishes he had a chance to apologize to Chapel....shouldn't it be the other way around? Chapel dumped him in such an over the top callous way that would earn the lulz and respect of the worst internet trolls.

- "By the time the Gorn realize what happen, it will be too late" ..uhm, if the Gorn uncover their stealth-attack plan, wouldn't that trigger the war they're bending over backwards to try to avoid in the first place? What does it matter if a few people manage to escape if the highest priority is supposedly to avoid the slaughter or millions in all-out war?

- Weird that they just assumed there were no survivors on the Cayuga saucer section just because they couldn't get a decisive scan (cuz of the interference?), and were planning on throwing the whole thing at the planet anyway. Pretty good luck on Chapel's part for just happening to catch Spock's attention in the nick of time. It would have been darkly amusing to watch Chapel desperately pound on the window as the Cayuga burns up in the atmosphere, leaving it to the audience to decide whether Spock just decided to ignore her presence completely. "Spock! Come back! I didn't mean what I sang in the lounge! Spoooock!"

- Surprised they can crash the massive saucer section so close to where the survivors are and not expect any casualties. I kinda expected that "friendly fire" was why there were suddenly no human life signs on the planet after Pike & co. returned. Recklessness compounds.

- Sigh, even the cliffhanger is trite.



Gorn: Raargh!
Computer: Command Code Invalid.

Gorn: Rawr?
Computer: Command Code Accepted.

SNW is in its own timeline. It does not reconcile with TOS. To use a lesser example, the audience learned that Spock experienced happiness for the first time in the episode "This Side of Paradise". Yet, in SNW, Spock is experiencing happiness in 2259, many years before the episode was set to take place.

"Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" was the final nail in the coffin, so to speak. We learned that the timeline has been altered, with the effects of it rippling down through the centuries, altering people, places, and events.

One of my major disappointments with SNW is that they are not taking advantage of this and exploring the potentials that lie in what it means. They do not have to pretend to adhere to what was established in TOS. They can chart their own path, create their own timeline of events.

Here come the cannon Nazis

Okay. Before I read the comments…

Decent action episode and cliffhanger, I have to say, that rounds off a good second season in satisfyingly impressive way. I felt the writers, producers and cast fully achieved what they set out to do in this episode and, best of all, I fully sympathised with what they were trying to do: create a simple, engaging blockbuster finale that left us wanting more.

Unlike many, I haven’t been that bothered by the retconning of the Gorn as xenomorphs. I should be, but I’m not. I wouldn’t describe myself as a stickler for canon or continuity (although it is preferable), and I view the Gorn retcon the same way I view ‘Chapel’ – a calculated decision by the writers and producers to smash canon and continuity in order to make SNW more watchable for a general audience. I suppose I should start referring to the Gorn in SNW the ‘Gorn’ in inverted commas as well. Since I firmly believe that ‘Chapel’ has been one of the highlights of SNW, I can’t pretend to have that much of a problem with the re-imagined ‘Gorn’ either. You either accept both or you don’t, I suppose.

The Gorn here are simply a cypher for the intractable monster enemy. They are xenomorphs. They are zombies stalking a Midwest town (!). They are the infection within. They are the invaders. They are the aliens of ‘Independence Day’. They are the lizard people. They are the fear in the dark. Nothing more, nothing less. This is a popcorn episode, and these are popcorn villains. Pike even called them ‘monsters’ – and I appreciated that April was given the quasi-Trekkian line about monsters being things we don’t know in reply – but that’s about as Trekkian as this episode is going to get. Maybe the conclusion will humanise the Gorn. Who knows? Your brain is meant to be full of popcorn and adrenalin watching this, not full of a Trek ethos.

I really must laud the special effects in this episode. I’ve sometimes criticised NuTrek for wasting its visual budget copying things we’ve seen before in other franchises, and while the special effects in this episode were reminiscent of other series and films (the burning saucer in particular made me think of ‘Generations’ – and not in a bad way), the execution this time was flawless and made sense within the plot of the episode*. The crew deserve full marks for what they’ve done here. I thought the special effects on the spacesuited Gorn, the debris field and the saucer re-entry were outstanding.

*The situation with Spock donning a spacesuit and going over to the wreck of the Cayuga to attach retro-rockets was shamelessly contrived to create a situation in which Spock – of course – is the one to encounter ‘Chapel’. Now, we know ‘Chapel’ is going to survive, so their encounter is solely there to advance the arc of their relationship. I can’t bring myself to be that bothered, for the simple reason that I actually really liked the scenes in a visual and storytelling way: in a purely Trek sense I have always loved the idea of crew members surviving in air pockets on destroyed vessels (that goes back to what I imagined must have happened at the Battle of Wolf 359), so I was thrilled to see ‘Chapel’ on the Cayuga – she should have perhaps donned her spacesuit straight away though, and there probably should have been other survivors as well. And the final image of Spock and ‘Chapel’ floating away in space as the Cayuga’s saucer plummets away to re-entry was utterly spectacular; nearly iconic.

Another rather underplayed but accomplished visual moment was when Pelia and NuScotty were running through the exploding corridor, and the camera pans over them as two crew members are blown to the sides. Simple, yet well executed: striking and effective. This is really good stuff – even though I usually find Pelia an irritating character to watch.

Again, I was pleased to see Una acting like a proper first officer, commanding with authority.

I was actually surprised that Batel didn’t die, and I was relieved that the crew (by which I mean the writers and producers) had remembered that you can place people in medical stasis if they’re important enough to the plot. It would have been cheap to redshirt (or, rather, fridge) Pike’s love interest just to create yet more tragic backstory. Thankfully that cliché was acknowledged, teased, and nicely avoided.

The only strong criticism that really nagged at me while watching the episode was, however, quite major: Ortegas. She really is the weakest link by far in SNW – I cannot pretend otherwise any longer. Her scenes in this episode were a masterpiece of ‘tell don’t show’ characterisation – even as she was actually supposedly *shown* being a brilliant pilot! While being this brilliant pilot, Pike has to tell us twice how amazing Ortegas is, and Pike even helps her out by going all woozy because despite Pike being a crack test pilot, Ortegas is even better than him. Ortegas is a brilliant pilot, you see? We don’t actually see it, but they sure tell us it. Navia’s performance in the shuttle did not inspire me to believe that she was a brilliant plot. In fact, Ortegas looked just as surprised by her own brilliant skills as the rest of crew do. It is now abundantly clear that the writers and producers simply don’t know what to do with Ortegas. Statements about her being a war veteran have gone nowhere. She’s a brilliant pilot, and that’s it. Now that the writers and producers have toned down her quips (thank God), there is no role for her.

I also believe this is the first episode in which Pike isn’t shown preparing food for others – although he is shown preparing himself a coffee. He also spent a little bit of time in the captain’s chair for once, before jumping out of it, of course. The rabbit in the headlights scene at the very end I will attribute to the old Trek staple of the lingering close shot for dramatic effect, rather than Pike being stunned into incompetence per se.

So all in all, a very serviceable episode that does what it sets out to do, and does it with style and self-confidence. Not bad at all.

Now to the comments…

So the adult Gorn was basically a T-Rex in a space suit...

So unless this Gorn was a foot soldier type Gorn and there's another form of Gorn with the brains I agree with @dave. I really struggle with these Gorn as capable of the advanced technology needed for space travel (or even any 'technology' beyond hitting something with a rock).

I have a feeling Ortegas won't survive when we finally get to see episode 1 of season 3 in 2026 (or whenever)... It was her line 'I was born to do this!' (pilot the shuttle). A spot of dramatic irony means she'll get killed going on her long awaited first away mission.

@artymiss
'So the adult Gorn was basically a T-Rex in a space suit...'

Ha! Exactly. I left 'Jurassic Park velociraptors' out of my list of screen predecessors the SNW Gorn shamelessly copy from.

@Jammer

"The real headline here is that the casting of Martin Quinn as Scotty is as inversely correct as the casting of Paul Wesley as Kirk was wrong. I don't know if it's the accent that's doing more than its fair share of the heavy lifting in convincing me, but it's almost funny how instantly I accepted Quinn as the new Scotty. He's spot on."

Agree concerning Quinn. He could quite possibly be the best recast of a Trek character ever. I disagree about Wesley though; I think he's nailing it.

I didn't much care for April's conversation with Pike. He should trust Pike to complete the mission regardless of personal relationships.

I was happy for Erica. Quite the pilot she is and I'm glad to see her on an away mission. Loved her smile when she pulled of the rapid ascent.

The large Gorn ship entry into the atmosphere was very cool, but I would have loved to see some more of the ship.

Pike and the big soppy hug... eesh...

Wow... Captain Batel infected with Gorn eggs... I hope they save her, I like her character.

Pike states Hemmer was "brave"? ... how about honorable Captain...

I thought the adult Gorn was pretty cool.

I swear I heard the alien detector from Aliens while Sam was scanning for the Gorn...

Why was Spock the only one that HAD to complete the mission to the wreckage? ... did it translate to a Chapel/Spock moment for the writers? How did Spock know the orientation to place the rockets on the hull to achieve the pinpoint accuracy spelled out by Pelia? I didn't see him do anything that anyone else couldn't have done.

Pretty convenient space suit availability for Chapel...

The space battle with the adult Gorn and their ascent from a crashing hulk was pretty darn awesome, although Spock probably should have grabbed the dead adult Gorn to take back to the Enterprise.

I thought we could have seen more of the journey of the hulk and the crash into the Gorn thingy on the planet. I think we might have got about 1.5 seconds there...

Spock and Chapel are beamed aboard, given specific orders in the heat of an ensuing battle and Spock just has to stop and say he’s sorry?!?!?! …. Jesus… .. and what the frak is he sorry about?

Where are some other StarFleet ships coming to the rescue/aid? .... a Star Fleet space ship/crew and an entire defenseless federation colony were obliterated and no one else shows up to help? The Gorn seem to be able to make it...

Wow, a serious situation for Pike here... does he follow Star Fleet's orders and hightail it out of there or stay, risk his entire ship and crew, to figure out how to save the colonists that were beamed up by the Gorn. I don't think we knew the Gorn had transporters until this episode. Ample drama for a cliffhanger here. Too bad it will probably be 2 years before we see part two.

This episode was OK, but it felt to me like the writers ran out of gas. Too many conveniences to push the plot along... seemed clunky/sloppy.

This will undoubtedly bring up BoBW... it's not on that level though... just not written well enough.

It was nice to unexpectedly see Scotty though.

2.5 stars from me.

@Dahj's Digital Ghost -- thanks for pointing that out. I appreciate your diligence! I vaguely recall a Gorn reference by that Orion (from "Bound") but obviously didn't quite remember it properly.

@Colin

"SNW is in its own timeline. It does not reconcile with TOS. "

Nope, that's never been mentioned. These writers are "moving the Eugenics wars trying to make Star Trek's future more "future".

@ThatERguy
'If Batel survives but Hemmer had to die I’m gonna be pissed. Hemmer should still be here. Also, why do we care about Batel? She’s lame.'

I would prefer they both survive (I abhor seeing female characters getting fridged), but I definitely second your point about Hemmer. I do wonder if the writers and producers regret what must now seem to have been a rather hasty mis-step in killing off Hemmer, since he's become something of a fan favourite. Also, Bruce Horak has been on the show twice since Hemmer's passing so the actor is clearly still available and up for involvement.

Would also second your point about the Batel/Pike relationship and the Batel character more generally. I don't find them a believable couple (again, little chemistry) and I don't find Batel a particularly interesting character on her own.

I am highly amused that you and both chose the same bad pun for our headlines in our respective reviews of the episode. (Mine is on Tor dot com.)

@Keith R.A. DeCandido

Ha!

For all those that are complaining about the Gorn and whether or not they appears to be intelligent enough to build space ships, etc... we all excepted an alien captain who speaks a metaphorical language incompatible with the universal translator. Do we really think someone speaking in metaphors is intelligent enough to develop warp travel?

I do agree they need to show us that trait with the Gorn though.

Thought... weren't the Gorn in Enterprise portrayed as a species that use slaves? Would it be acceptable to them to have "acquired" their technology?

@Yanks

"Do we really think someone speaking in metaphors is intelligent enough to develop warp travel?"

Personally yes, it would take a lot of intelligence to speak in metaphors!

@Yanks
'Thought... weren't the Gorn in Enterprise portrayed as a species that use slaves? Would it be acceptable to them to have "acquired" their technology?'

The Kazon in VOY famously acquired their advanced technology from the species that had enslaved them, whom they overthrew (the Trabe). Is this what you mean?

Mixed feelings here. Every time we have "sentient" aliens who happen to be deadly "monsters", things seem not to click ... They are gross beasts but have ships and teleporters? Well, let's wait and see.

@Bok R'Mor

"The Kazon in VOY famously acquired their advanced technology from the species that had enslaved them, whom they overthrew (the Trabe). Is this what you mean?"

We also have the Pakleds. I'm wondering if folks here would accept it if the Gorn were also in this group?

What was Scotty gonna do after he captured the Gorn, engineer them to death?

That's so Scotty though, only thinking as far as trapping or evading them but "You want me to -kill- the wee buggers? Oh noo, I'm afraid that falls outside of my jurisdiction -- but if you'd like, I can lower the force field so you can hop right in and try?"

@Bryan: Hahaha, so true!!

The adult Gorn in this episode was portrayed as attempting to hack Cayuga's computer. The youngsters may be portrayed as mindless monsters but just because we saw the adult attack Spock & Chapel does not mean it was behaving like a beast rather than a sapient creature.

The young may run around killing each other so that the strongest of a clutch survive, but once they've grown up, we have no reason to believe the Gorn practice Gorn-on-Gorn violence to the same extent that would preclude the development of a complex society stable enough to develop advanced technology.

And I guess that's part of the problem: we don't know. We have not been shown. The "lore" of the Gorn, their culture, is severely under-developed at present, leaving us to speculate to try to fill in these blanks. It's early days yet as the Gorn have only appeared in three episodes and the show clearly wants to milk the "horror" aspect of them a while longer until familiarity makes that wear off. Because giving such answers breeds familiarity which reduces the scariness. However, I hope the show understands that they do need to give such answers at some point. Because that's Trek. That's what we're here for.

. . .

Remember how DS9 introduced the Dominion? It was kind of like this. Big scary unknown presence with uncertain motives and hyper-capable tactically. We could argue the Jem'Hadar were monsters in the same spirit as the Gorn. But look where they went from there. The Dominion was developed into a well thought out, complex society whose internal workings and motivations made complete sense. But it wasn't that way from the word "GO."

We need to give the show a chance to let things develop and not demand all the answers up front. This isn't even "mid" Gorn arc. It's still just the beginning.

The Ready Room takes a deep dive into the Gorn puppets/animatronics this week and gives you a good, clear look at the bipedal Gorn & its EV suit. The mouth is the part that seems to most closely resemble the TOS version. Sounds like S3 is where we’ll finally get to see the adult Gorn sans it’s space suit.

@Jeffrey's Tube

Agree. Nice post.

I suppose I should give my two cents...better late than never (I've been on vacation in Amsterdam, and though I watched the episode last night, finding time to collect my thoughts has been difficult.

While this episode was watchable in the moment, I ultimately found it empty calories; a contrived tangle of plot threads and attempts at open emotional manipulation which - for me personally - just didn't work (other than the inclusion of Scotty - the actor is too young, but otherwise so picture-perfect I cannot complain).

In a series that has notably been mostly character-focused, it's notable how little character really matters here. Yes, there are little nods to the relationships between Pike and Batel and Spock and Chapel respectively, but these threads seem undercooked. Spock at least has a bit of an edge with his regret over where things were left with Chapel, but she comes across as more object than character here. The choice to create false tension around her death, in particular, just seemed ill-thought-out, given we all know she will survive to the TOS era (same issue with M'Benga being part of the group captured by the Gorn). With Pike, all you can really tell is he cares about her, and the actors playing both have great chemistry. There's just not a lot of depth there.

Take this out, and it's just one plot contrivance after another, the most notable being Chapel's plot armor, surviving an attack that killed everyone else on the Cayuga. Or at least, I hope it killed everyone else, considering Spock and Chapel made absolutely no effort to see if anyone else was still alive onboard the fragment of the saucer section that still had atmosphere. That whole subplot was frankly offensive. I understand that Chapel matters to Spock but in the universe of Star Trek, nameless randos not played by lead actors also have lives with worth and meaning. The show treated them as set dressing in a way that was quite offensive, in that it presumed our intelligence was too low to actually think about the responsibilities that Spock and Chapel had as Starfleet officers.

The planet-side stuff was less objectionable - in part because even though it's fanservice, Scotty just works here. My main issue is just that what SNW did with the Gorn is something I'm completely unenthusiastic about (though of course, something better could come of this next season). I also think that since no new ground was really trodden regarding the Gorn as of yet, this is basically just pulling from the same well we've seen before, once you take the melodrama out.

Did that mean I hated it? No, it was a perfectly serviceable hour of Star Trek, and worked fine as a cliffhanger. It was just...kinda dumb, and unfortunately, not in the "dumb fun" kind of way.

@Karl Zimmerman
'Or at least, I hope it killed everyone else, considering Spock and Chapel made absolutely no effort to see if anyone else was still alive onboard the fragment of the saucer section that still had atmosphere.'

Definitely the most glaring error in this episode, I think. They were so determined to set up the situation with Spock and 'Chapel' and have that shot of them floating in space as the saucer fell away that they didn't try and think of a more humane or logical (no puns intended) way to do it.

So far, the Gorn and MBenga are both cold blooded killers. The only difference is that we don’t fully know the Gorn yet. We know fully Mbenga just is one.

@Karl Zimmerman

If you think Chapel’s plot armor is bad just wait till you find out they actually saved Picard from the Borg by just beaming over to the cube and taking him in BoBW2. You wanna call things contrivances that aren’t? How about when the unstoppable Borg were beaten by typing a single word into a computer and hitting enter.

@Bok R’Mor

That’s some highly arbitrary nonsense right there lol. There are hundreds of reasons they didn’t have the time to look across that whole derelict ship to see if there were other survivors. Most importantly, without their plan working there would have been zero way to save them anyway since transporters were blocked and the Gorn would have EASILY caught on to a bunch of shuttles picking people up from the wreckage and going back to the Enterpise. Come on. You people are so hellbent on being negative about the show, you can’t see past your own nose. This is objectively not an error in the story telling, and is at best a massive reach.

@Pike's Hair
'Come on. You people are so hellbent on being negative about the show, you can’t see past your own nose.'

Yet you ignored my post about this episode that was actually full of effusive praise for it (I actually said I was 'thrilled' by the scene with 'Chapel' in the air pocket and called the shot of Spock and 'Chapel' floating 'iconic').

This kind of comment from you is proof that for 'you people', if we're playing *that* game, no amount of praise for this show will ever be enough.

Here, try this, then:
This was the absolute best episode of Star Trek I have ever seen, and it was an utter privilege to have been allowed to witness such greatness gracing my television. Everything the writers and producers did was perfect in every single way.

That do, or is it still insufficient?

No, still insufficient.

I hereby award all episodes 5 stars out of 4! And those are not just my scores; I speak for all!

That should do it. :)

@Jammer
Only 5 stars out of 4? Why not 6? Why do you hate SNW so much??? Get a life, etc etc.

/s

Although we did not see it, we can assume Chapel checked all the bodies nearby in her compartment where the life support was still functioning to make sure they were dead. It would have been the first thing she did. She is, after all, a nurse. I personally do not need to see her do that to know that she did.

Lucky she didn't run into that Gorn while doing so, though. Probably it entered the compartment afterward while she was stabilizing the life support. It was wearing an environment suit, after all.

As for any crew who might have still been alive anywhere else in other compartments on the ship that still had life support . . . well . . .

I mean, it was a plot point that they could not scan the debris for survivors. Spock and co. really had no way of knowing that there weren't other Cayuga survivors holed up in pockets around the ship. I think at one point it was even stated there were more than one of those pockets. People very well could have been alive while the Enterprise crew, instead of searching and rescuing them, turned the wreck into a fireball of death.

So yeah. I'm not going to blame Chapel for not rescuing anybody, and I don't think anyone else should because I believe we don't need to see her try to know that she tried. But Spock and the rest of the Enterprise crew . . . it's a plot hole at best, and an odd one considering the circumstances were directly addressed multiple times in the script. Because of that, one of the writers really should have had a "hey wait a minute . . . " moment and realized this.

. . .

We can't even say "Oh the Enterprise scanners cannot find survivors because they're too far away and cannot penetrate the interference field but once Spock is actually on the ship his tricorder worked and it didn't find any survivors so there weren't any." Because he didn't find Chapel with his tricorder and he would have . . . nor did he find the Gorn that was sneaking up on him . . . and not even near field communications were working because Spock and Chapel couldn't talk to each other through suit communications . . . so . . . ummm . . . oops?

Final episode of the season was competently done, with strong echoes of both Alien an Aliens. Young Scotty if perfect. liked him a lot. Also didn't expect him to pop up but I should've remembered which show I'm watching. :-)

I still don't care about Pike and Batel but at least I wasn't bored this time.

The whole business with Chapel on the destroyed Cayuga was really good. Jess Bush is the MVP of the seaosn the Chapel is my favorite character on the show right now.
However, I found it hard to believe that A) she would be the ONLY survivor, and B) that Enterprise and Spock will be 100 percent sure there are no survivors without actually checking before hurling the saucer into the planet's surface.

And what the heck was the adult Gorn doing on the Cayuga?

Some other thoughts:

Pike calling everyone by their first name on the bridge. Argg...

Ortegas saying "supercool toys" and "don't backseat drive me". Other than that she was okay.

Good cliffhanger, but who the heck knows when this show is coming back. That was cruel. Also, Pike standing there in the final moments of the season finding it hard to give orders as captain... that was unintended irony at its best.

It was a good seaosn, but not as good as the first one. My favorite episode is Subspace Harmony with As Astra Per Aspera coming in as close second. My least favorite is Those Old Scientists which was too silly and incomprehensible to me.

Good finale. Not among the best cliffhangers in Trek, but good. 4/5 stars good.

As for the season on the whole - I think the highs were higher than last year but the lows were lower as well.

I'm still watching, though. I gave up on Disco after season 2 and just skimmed through Picard's second season (I waited till s3 was done before binging it after the acclaim it got)

Hopefully SNW returns better than ever...eventually

Maybe we can say that they believed time was of the essence in getting the field down so they could rescue by transporter all the surviving civilians of the colony from the Gorn kill cordon before they were hunted down to the last man, woman, and child, and to that effect any Starfleet survivors who were casualties of this plan died in the line of duty doing what they knew they had signed up for. If I squint really hard I can just about justify this, although it doesn't seem like it strictly needed to be an either/or situation.

Like if they always could have EVA'd over to the saucer without being observed like Spock did to plant the rockets, why didn't they do that immediately upon arriving on the scene to check for survivors? Okay, you aren't getting anyone badly hurt back to the ship that way. But if there is anyone who could have gotten into an environment suit, you could have rescued them . . .

Unless the risk of sending more than one person, or more than one trip, was deemed unacceptable because Spock very well COULD have been noticed on his way over. Hmmm.

@Jeffrey's Tube

All it would have taken is a moment in which 'Chapel' runs a quick check of the saucer debris on the computer to search for other survivors, with 'NO OTHER LIFESIGNS DETECTED' flashing up on the screen in red and 'Chapel' saying to herself, 'Oh my God, I'm the only survivor, all of the others are gone,' or somesuch.

Still doesn't explain away the fact that the crew on the Enterprise were depicted as having already decided to use the Cayuga as a fiery frisbee before we were even shown 'Chapel' waking up, but, you know, 'objective' infallible brilliance in the storytelling and all that.

Of course, any scan by 'Chapel' would presumably have revealed the Gorn who later appeared, unless the Gorn was using some sort of dampening field like the Gorn were using on the planet and in orbit.

@ Bok

Presumably the interior sensors wouldn't work any better than a tricorder if the jamming field was strong enough to block even near field suit-to-suit communications. With the parameters being what the writers set them as, I really don't see how they could have been certain there were no other survivors elsewhere on the ship without conducting a physical search, which we know for certain was not done.

Perhaps the scan could have identified one other lifesign, 'Chapel' would have taken it to be a survivor and headed to where it was - only to find it was the Gorn trying to access the computer as depicted.

@Jeffrey's Tube
'I really don't see how they could have been certain there were no other survivors elsewhere on the ship without conducting a physical search, which we know for certain was not done.'

Yep. Of course, as you explained earlier, this doesn't exonerate the Enterprise crew from having consigned any possible survivors to unsolicited posthumous hero status/weaponised unshielded re-entry. Even 'Chapel' herself only makes it out by chance: a) she regains consciousness in time; b) she is somewhere where she can see the Enterprise; c) Spock happens to float by exactly that section as well, and 'Chapel' sees him; d) there's an intact space suit very close by; e) she isn't spotted first by the Gorn and killed by it; f) she reaches Spock (no serious obstacles); g) they defeat the Gorn together in a brief fight and h) successfully exit the debris in time and are not dragged down by it.

@slackerink

A 5 day blastocyst acts in its own self defense when poked with a needle. Depending on definitions, that is sentient.

(Learning some embryology due to IVF)

Mostly as long as the major beats are in place I'm not super picky about some of the canon stuff (if a Klingon bird of prey class comes in a few years too soon, I likely don't notice.)

But I do wonder about federations officers seeing the Gorn so soon before Arena and Kirk's "first contact."

The episode did mention slingshotting around the sun, so maybe a time travel solution is coming?

Just a thought, does anyone remember season 2 of TNG? There was a writers strike that year too (1988?) and I think they recycled stories from the canceled Star Trek Phase II series in the 1970s, updating them for TNG. Some of the most intriguing and mysterious TNG episodes happened that season, including “Where Silence Has Lease.” In other words, Star Trek can survive writers strikes.

One other thought, I think people are giving SNW too much credit for making the Gorn into modern sci fi alien monsters. Enterprise already did that in the two parter (In a Mirror, Darkly?) that tried to link the TOS episodes Mirror Mirror and The Tholian Web. The Gorn design was a bit closer to Arena there, but they were fast and scary, and I seem to recall a vivid FX shot of them crawling all over the ship like reptiles. They were basically monsters in Arena, just with more primitive effects.

My disappointment comes from SNW’s choice to focus on the Gorn instead of on an intelligent and intelligible enemy. Where is this all headed? I have no objection to multiple universes, no interest in self-important and pseudo religious discussions about “canonical” fantasy worlds, and no problem with a show that does fresh things. My complaint is that Trek keeps going back to the TOS well for prequels — Enterprise, JJ Trek, Discovery, and now SNW — instead of having the guts to just be it’s own thing and move forward. There’s nothing so magical about the TOS characters that we need a third iteration of them in this series. I miss TNG’s resolute commitment to living in a Trek universe that, while it acknowledged its past, didn’t make constant references back to it. The genius of TNG is that it worked hard to break away and become its own thing, as did DS9 and Voyager. We’ve been moving backwards chronologically ever since Voyager.

I say let the past be the past: we don’t need to keep reinventing the same freaking characters like this is some kind of comic book franchise. They were perfect the first time, a fun retro homage tour in 2009-2016, and now utterly exhausting the third time. Let them die and move on, Star Trek. Stop serving me reheated, reconstituted leftovers that only invite unflattering comparisons to the original feast.

I like Lower Decks and Prodigy. Discovery had its moments before grinding into a tedious, unfocused, and unmotivated fourth season. I don’t even know what SNW is supposed to be, other than filler to keep me watching in the hopes that a new generation of Nicholas Meyers, Brannon Bragas and Ronald Moore’s will step forward. I’m not giving up yet. I’m rooting for you, Trek.

I don’t know if ya’ll noticed, but when they pan across the bodies of the dead crew members in the saucer section of the Cayuga, they’re all….RED SHIRTS.

That's hilarious. They should have known that keeping count with a "Days Since Last Redshirt Death" sign would be tempting fate.

@Trek Fan

I understand & agree with your desire for a new, original Trek without rebooting the old characters, but Kirk & Company have been a part of the popular culture now for almost 60 years now. I dare say they’re becoming iconic in the vein of Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Superman. Look how many actors have played those characters over the years and how many times their origin stories have been told, each time indoctrinating a new generation of fans.

Even though we may feel the stories violate canon or they are not created in the same vein as the originals, we’ve seen that before: Basil Rathbone, Peter Cushing, Benedict Cumberbatch & Robert Downey are distinctly different as Sherlock Holmes, but I’m sure more actors will continue to play the role. It’s really a testament ent to how good the TOS characters are that creators want to keep resurrecting them and updating their stories. I have a feeling they might still be telling stories about the crew of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 long after we are all gone!

@Trek fan
You make a number of particularly perceptive and important points.

‘I miss TNG’s resolute commitment to living in a Trek universe that, while it acknowledged its past, didn’t make constant references back to it. The genius of TNG is that it worked hard to break away and become its own thing, as did DS9 and Voyager.’

I fully agree. It’s interesting to recall that when DeForest Kelley guest-starred in ‘Farpoint’ he was caked in so much make-up it wasn’t even clear that it was him, for example. And there was a Klingon (at that time) extra (as late as ‘Samaritan Snare’, Wesley famously even states that the Klingons had joined the Federation). The Ferengi were set up in S1 to be the main villains. There were certain re-hashes like ‘The Naked Now’ and the title of ‘Where No One Has Gone Before’, but the only real definitive callback to TOS is when the Romulans appear in ‘The Neutral Zone’ and say (for the viewer) ‘We’re back’.
While re-watching DS9 over the past few months I’ve been reminded how much of DS9-era has no link whatsoever to anything directly created by Rodenberry: if you’re watching a Bajoran and a Trill talk about the Dominion, the Cardassians and the Maquis and the future of a galactic quadrant, then all of those things came after Rodenberry’s passing. My point is that Trek developed in a somewhat organic fashion during TNG, DS9 and VOY. It didn’t always work – the Maquis were largely a failure, I think, and Bajoran religion took up too much airtime – but generally as a viewer you had confidence that the writers and producers were going to keep pressing ahead in a way you trusted. You weren’t afraid that Trek had run out of creativity, and you were excited about where everything was headed.

‘We’ve been moving backwards chronologically ever since Voyager.’

I know what you mean by this, but someone will come along and say, ‘What about Nemesis? What about when Discovery goes to the future in DSC? What about PIC? What about LDS? What about PRO? Shut up, you toxic entitled hater, dry your eyes and never watch Trek again, you are ruining it for the rest of us’. But yes, you’re entirely right that the sense of forward world-building motion ended when VOY ended. Everything since then has been either set in the past or been a chronic nostalgia fest. And conceptually it’s mostly dissatisfying to watch. (S1 and S2 of PIC were particularly egregious in that regard.)

It's worth remembering that before ENT was launched, it had always been presumed throughout the 1990s that the next series would be a Starfleet Academy series. Now my memory is a bit hazy, and it may be that Rodenberry intended it to be a prequel, showing how Kirk and TOS crew met, or it may have been intended to be set in the TNG era. We are now back to a Starfleet Academy series being promised, which says to me that even the old series ideas are being strip-mined, thirty plus years later.

‘I say let the past be the past: we don’t need to keep reinventing the same freaking characters like this is some kind of comic book franchise.‘

This is a key point, and unfortunately it’s become something of a self-fulfilling loop. We are in the era of the major franchise, which began for Trek with the JJ films. I’ve mentioned before how there are now a generation of people whose first taste of Trek was the JJ films, and when they hear Trek they expect to see something like the JJ films. Even the writers and producers are thinking of the JJ stuff most of the time. So that means Kirk, Spock an Uhura and a retro-futuristic JJ Enterprise. And that’s what we get in SNW. That’s the producers trying to re-jig Trek *as a comic book franchise* for the franchise era. That’s why quips, self-aware snark, lens flares (remember S1-3 of DSC, PIC and the first few episodes of SNW?), unnecessary action scenes, special effects, feels and ‘shipping’ (young adult romance) are all prioritised over the more philosophical avenues we saw in TOS and TNG-era Trek. Ironically, in having Trek as a franchise consciously copy the features of other contemporary franchises (e.g. Marvel) to try and attract the audiences of those franchises, Trek is actually being made less unique and ultimately doesn’t stand out as much, and those JJ-era audiences aren’t being challenged with anything new so they’ll probably get bored anyway.
The long and the short of all this is that Trek will probably continue to focus on the TOS (‘SNW’) era for the foreseeable future, for intellectual property and commercial landscape reasons.

"The long and the short of all this is that Trek will probably continue to focus on the TOS (‘SNW’) era for the foreseeable future, for intellectual property and commercial landscape reasons."

That, and follow the adventures of the children of legacy characters from other Classic Trek series, especially if Matalas-Trek were to get a new lease on life, or if Kurtzman is willing to make that concession for Starfleet Academy.

And failing that, we'll probably see "The Adventures of Young Picard" played by none other than James McAvoy. Maybe with Sophie Turner as a young Beverly---wait, would that be weird?

How about a DS9 spin-off series that features Baby Odo?

@Trek Fan
"My complaint is that Trek keeps going back to the TOS well for prequels — Enterprise, JJ Trek, Discovery, and now SNW — instead of having the guts to just be it’s own thing and move forward. "
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It is all about "safe choices" and lack of competent writers/showr unners.
Even Picard's best season was a nostalgia trip against old enemies.

The only series that seems to move forward is Lower Decks.
They truly know and love their Star Trek there.

All this talk of 'canon violations' is quite problematic for many reasons. Every single series of Star Trek has been 'breaking canon' or twisting the rules or retconning stuff for decades - here is no different. If we didn't 'break canon' then we wouldn't have any number of interesting new storylines, perspectives, species or anything whatsoever.

The very idea of 'canon' is also kind of absurd in a way - there is no definitive Written In Stone list of what is accepted or unaccepted. 'Canon' as we know it is an ever-evolving process of re-evaluating and reorientating the story, lore or background in new, refreshing ways. 'Canon' is added to and expanded with every single new episode of Star Trek and therefore is cannot, nor ever will be definitive and set.

Star Trek fans, by themselves, are not gate-keepers of 'Canon'. But some seem to be taking a purist approach to adhering to the 'rules' of canon or treating it as some sort of enshrined legal document which is problematic in itself. It seems to be where a lot of the binary arguments on this forum come from.

The Gorn were a throwaway villain in TOS which, the writers of SNW, have attempted to turn into more of a recurring species in a monster mould. We can air our opinions whether we think this is successful or not - but 'canon' shouldn't matter because, in a way, it doesn't exist.

Scotty! he's Baa-ack! (and well cast too, unlike young Kirk - Wesley is very likeable, just dont fit TOS Kirk's shoes: totally miscast! so say all of us...)

Why is everyone saying we have to wait 2,3 years for S3? Wasnt Picard S2, S3 created back to back? So come Downunder to continue shooting SNW - everyone needs the work, and aussie writers arent on strike - always ready & willing to help, now....

Every time the Gorn show up someone mentions Arena and "but the Federation barely know anything about the Gorn and the Enterprise crew have never encountered them before in that episode!" As if that episode doesn't have godlike beings, the Metrons, engineering a scenario where the captains of the ships have to fight in a Q-like test of if they can in fact show promise towards someday behaving like "civilized beings." As if the Metrons couldn't have modified the memories of the test subjects involved to suit the parameters of their test. Which, doing so would, in fact, create a scenario to get the most accurate result for what it is they wanted to measure.

So yeah. There's a canon "out" built right into that episode for what SNW is doing. No need to worry about it anymore, everyone! K? :p

It's no more canon-bending than a million other examples we can all cite. It does not modify or ruin the message or effectiveness of the TOS episode. On any level other than as a "whatabout-ism," what real objection is there to give?

@Lynos

"The whole business with Chapel on the destroyed Cayuga was really good. Jess Bush is the MVP of the seaosn the Chapel is my favorite character on the show right now."

I'm very fond of the character as well. She's becoming too much the CMO at times though. I don't want her to encroach on M'Benga.

"However, I found it hard to believe that A) she would be the ONLY survivor, and B) that Enterprise and Spock will be 100 percent sure there are no survivors without actually checking before hurling the saucer into the planet's surface."

Agree. Now I don't think they intentionally sent someone to a burning death, but the writers should have given us something. It's bad enough that Chapel just happened to be the one person to survive.

"And what the heck was the adult Gorn doing on the Cayuga?"

My guess is it was gathering as much intelligence as possible.

"Some other thoughts:

Pike calling everyone by their first name on the bridge. Argg..."

Totally agree. I've stated many times that the lack of military bearing is glaring. It's the primary thing I hope they fix in season 3.

"Ortegas saying "supercool toys" and "don't backseat drive me". Other than that she was okay."

Good episode for her... I could do without her off-hand comments seemingly every time she's given an order though.

All,

Everytime I read "canon this, canon that" I think... TOS didn't even follow it's own canon... so little do dah's here and there don't bother me.

I'm more worried about this being some sort of alternate timeline as a result of "Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow" The young Khan was intentional... I'm not sure what that means.

"'Pike calling everyone by their first name on the bridge. Argg...'

Totally agree. I've stated many times that the lack of military bearing is glaring. It's the primary thing I hope they fix in season 3."

I don't think the powers that be in the series have a sense of the Enterprise as a unformed service. Their model for Pike seems to be to embody lots of the "what makes a great team leader" posts that circulate around LinkedIn.

wait a minute, that's not a cliffhanger. Ending with an "impossible choice" is only cliffhanger material if we don't know what the character will choose - but we know he will not choose to leave people behind.

Pike wouldn't PERMANENTLY leave his crew behind but it's not uncommon for a captain to make a tactical retreat, formulate a plan and return later. Even so, this is hardly a cliffhanger-worthy dilemma.

On the Cayuga, they knew that the likelihood of survivors was probably very low, but (a) hundreds of civilians on the planet were still definitely alive and in immediate peril, (b) an unknown number of hostile enemy soldiers were present on the saucer, perhaps now alerted to Spock and Christine, and who might imminently locate and sabotage the thrusters, and (c) there were hostile vessels in proximity so Enterprise needed to grab their people and evacuate the combat zone. Even if a few crew were alive - and it seems likely there were - the thruster maneuver needed to happen then and there before something prevented it. Yes, it would have been nice if the potential for collateral Starfleet casualties was discussed first, but it all went down pretty fast. And in any case, Starfleet officers are expected to protect civilians with their lives.

@Richard James
"All this talk of 'canon violations' is quite problematic for many reasons. Every single series of Star Trek has been 'breaking canon' or twisting the rules or retconning stuff for decades - here is no different. "

That is true, but I think the difference with the new live action shows is that except for Picard they all chose to be prequels. You didn't hear many complaints with 90's Trek becaus those shows' timelines all happened concurrently.
Another big difference I think is that the writers of NuTrek are messing around with characters and not just story beats and how things are named or whay happened in which date. There is really no way to reconcile most of SNW's characters with their TOS counterparts, which is why I've said that for me the show is in a separate timeline and then I don't need to worry about any of it.

"The very idea of 'canon' is also kind of absurd in a way - there is no definitive Written In Stone list of what is accepted or unaccepted. 'Canon' as we know it is an ever-evolving process of re-evaluating and reorientating the story, lore or background in new, refreshing ways.?

I agree and disagree. While canon should never come in the face of a great story, the basic concept of it, I think, it important. It allows you to draw straight lines across a history of an imagined universe and trace the cause and effect. It gives the world consistency and realness, which in its turn help us beleive in it more.
If canon is unimportant and you can just do whatever you like with anything, then the world begins to feel chaotic, random and meaningless.
Noboy should gatekeep anything, and if people want to enjoy something without worrying about canon then that is fine, but I think every imagined universe should attempt to remain as consistent as possible without losing its identity or sacrificing its themes and characters.

Yanks and Judge of Change

Star Trek Captains have regularly called bridge officers by the first name apart from Kirk, in command situations.

Picard - Will and Deanna, Geordi, Beverly (Worf & Data only have one name to use)

Sisko - Not as often as Picard but still addressed Jadzia and Julian by thier first names in command situations.

Janeway - Called Tom, Harry and B'Ellana by their first names more other than not.

Archer - Called Bridge officers by their first names more often than not.

An okay part one that I'm not thrilled about as a standalone, but highly dependent on how S3 E1 turns out. If that one is good to great (and the astronaut Gorn trying to access systems while the Cayoga was on the Federation side of the line gives me hope for that) then I will feel much better about this entry.

@Macca

Yes, other captains called their subordinates by their first names here and there, and had relationships that went beyond heirarchy, but I dunno, seeing how Pike specifically does it on the bridge in the context of military work and not in the lounge or in his private quarters feels... I dunno... strange.

But you may be right. I need to watch older Trek episode and see how it was done there for comparison. I think one of the reasons it stands out with Pike is that unlike the other captains, he exhibits other traits that you would not associate with "captainhood" necesserilly, while someone like Janeway or Picard, does. So when they call someone by the first name it means something subtextually, perhaps they want to discuss something more intimate or private, perhaps it shows that at this moment they feel comfortable and relaxed doing so due to context of the scene, perhaps it shows us something about their state of mind.
But Pike seems to be one note regarding his command style. I still don't know what makes him tick as a captain and why his crew adores him. The final scene where everybody looks at him to make a decision is a perfect example of the problematic portrayal of the captain in tense situations. Note how he TURNS to his crew as if telling them "I don't know what to do. Do YOU have any ideas?"

I mean, all through the season he deferred big decisions to other crew members, especially Uhura and La'an, so it makes sense I guess.

@Lynos

My recollection of Picard on the bridge and in front of the 'lower orders' - it was Number One, Counsellor, Mr Data, Commander Data, Mr Worf, Doctor or Doctor Crusher... Off the bridge or making a personal aside on the bridge he'd use first names.

I'm not going to rewatch them all to prove conclusively that @Macca is wrong though!

@Lynos

And I completely agree with your comments on Pike's command style in this season.

@Galadriel: So Europeans never had any notions of race or any societal conflicts because of racism? I think generations of colonized Africans and Asians into the 1950's and present day Algerian immigrants in France or Caribbean and African immigrants in Britain in the 1950's and 60's, to name just a few, would strongly disagree with you.

@artymiss

"My recollection of Picard on the bridge and in front of the 'lower orders' - it was Number One, Counsellor, Mr Data, Commander Data, Mr Worf, Doctor or Doctor Crusher... Off the bridge or making a personal aside on the bridge he'd use first names."

Yeah, that is my recollection as well... I don't remember Picard using first names on the bridge.
But hey, this can come under "command style". Obviously Picard is the most "captain" of them all. but I think kirk was very similiar. Certainly his portrayal in TOS is far from the amiable, friendly guy of SNW. He's all business on the bridge and in front of his crew unless he's joking around with Spock and McCoy, the only people he really feels comfortable with. That's two close friends, not the entire crew.

I think Janeway did say "Harry" or "Tom" once in a while on the bridge in times of great stress or when she wanted to make a point.
Sisko I don't reallty remember. He wasn't a starship captain so that is fuzzy in mind.

@Macca

"Star Trek Captains have regularly called bridge officers by the first name apart from Kirk, in command situations."

You may be right, (I'm not sure it happened frequently while they were on watch) but there was a more respectful military response in return than we see in SNW.

Scotty reminds me more of Welshy in Where No Fan Has Gone Before

There was always the debate if Starfleet is a military or not. Roddenberry said it wasn't and SNW finally decided to respect his wishes. :)

Agree with Jammer's 3 stars, and his lack of concern on SNW's use of the Gorn and how it fits into "Arena."

As far as I am concerned, "Arena" is one of the worst episodes of all Trek (with laughable sequences for comedy effect for its last 25 minutes), so it makes no difference to me whether they fit anything into that dreck of an hour or not.

Otherwise a decent closer to the season, but I would have preferred that they didn't use a full-force cliffhanger. Scotty was the best surprise of the episode, and unlike Jammer, I thought the Gorn's fight with Spock and Chapel in space suits was well done.

Somehow I doubt the SNW Gorn fight with Spock and Chapel will be remembered 50 years like the fight from "Arena" is. It's undeniably a classic Trek moment whether you're cheering along with it, or laughing at it. SNW didn't -have- to run with that, but I really wish that they had.

My decision to walk away from SNW after episode 2 was a good one, in hindsight. And I don't say that to mean "haha I'm not watching that dreck and you are!", but rather acceptance of SNW S2 not being made for me. It is Young Adult science fiction meant for a different age group with different life experiences and sensibilities, none of which are inferior or wrong, and can be written quite well when considering that fact.

Hammering away at SNW for not being Shakespearean drama with a 30-50 target age is a bit like rhythmically hitting a garbage can at midnight. No matter how perfect your timing, you still are the only one wanting to hear it.

One captain who almost exclusively addressed subordinated by their first name was Jellico. A slightly different register there, almost like he thinks of them as kindergarteners who don't warrant being referred to by their last names.

On that note, I believe the Picard would more often refer to Wesley as "Wesley", not Mr.Crusher...especially when he wasn't too happy with him, so the idea that it tended to be used more patronizingly rather than in the sense of shared comradery and equality often see on SNW might hold water.

Not that I really care all that much how people address each other. I'll wait until Captain Seven refers to Raffi as "Commander Honeybuns" before I take issue with that.

I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned that NuScotty is clearly based on the Pegg JJ version, rather than Doohan's. Another example of SNW drawing its inspiration from the JJ films rather than TOS.

@ Galadriel

"Since I am a Euro­pean who doesn’t even know what ‘race’ means (except some kind of super­stition or pseu­do­sci­ence or social hyste­ria), I am tho­rough­ly confused."

Ask a person of color in France, and your confusion will end.

@Galadriel

"Also, I have to be that killjoy who points out the a demarcation line between an planet and its moon make no sense, because the planet revolves around its sun and the moon around the planet."

This was a real head-scratcher for me. I wish they would have not mentioned it at all, because you can see from their diagram that it's ludicrous. This is supposed to be science fiction (?) and they don't even know that planets and moons have orbits? Not to mention that the star has its own orbit within the galaxy. There's a difference between suspension of disbelief and suspension of intelligence.

”I was disappointed she didn’t try to save any of the unconscious people on the Cayuga before her Ex steers the wreck into a crash landing that none can survive."

I actually expected the plan to *fail* due to the obvious possibility of survivors, and it would push the story forward in a very different direction. If it were TNG, I think Picard wouldn't have given up until the ship had been thoroughly searched. At the very least, I can't think of any other Starfleet captain who would support a plan that would kill any remaining survivors.

Good point about Pike and the survivors. That reminded me of when I stopped watching Stargate Atlantis -- the episode when the heroes nonchalantly were going to let 1,000 strangers die, but when one of their own got into the same trap, they rather easily saved everybody. It's not a good sign when the writers, seemingly without knowing, make their heroes into villains. That leads to big questions about quality control.

@ Bok

"I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned that NuScotty is clearly based on the Pegg JJ version, rather than Doohan's. Another example of SNW drawing its inspiration from the JJ films rather than TOS."

How do you figure? That's not what I saw at all. Right down to the body language and mannerisms, he was channeling Doohan. Wonderfully well.

. . .

Simon Pegg plays Simon Pegg in everything he's in.

Honestly I want this cast to reboot TOS to make it relevant for my son’s generation. There are so many glaring problems with the original series that could be fixed. Shatner and Nimoy were such flaming egotists that their characters were the only 2 with ant dimension.

@Jeffrey's Tube: "I'm surprised that some people on this site needed it explained . . . well, did you REALLY need it explained, or did you just want to nitpick because what you were actually feeling is that the scenario was too contrived just to set up Spock to be the one to rescue Chapel, and not because you did not understand the rationale for the setup?"

No disingenuous ulterior motives here. I just honestly found it puzzling. The calculations angle didn't even occur to me, actually. I assumed it had something to do with his greater strength/stamina, but (a) it didn't look hugely strenous and (b) hello, Una?

"The adult Gorn in this episode was portrayed as attempting to hack Cayuga's computer. The youngsters may be portrayed as mindless monsters but just because we saw the adult attack Spock & Chapel does not mean it was behaving like a beast rather than a sapient creature."

Cosigned.

@dave: "But, a species that operates on such primal instinct in no way could have developed scientists, doctors, teachers, explorers, etc (with all the reason and restraint) and so on to develop space faring technology and being at the superior level they are at."

IDK about you, but I operate on primal instinct a lot of times, when I see a beautiful woman, delicious-looking food, a cute baby, or someone cuts me off in traffic. I can envision the Gorn going a little further in that direction (as the Klingons seemingly do as well), while still being able to do all that other stuff.

@Bryan:

"Gorn: Raargh!
Computer: Command Code Invalid.

Gorn: Rawr?
Computer: Command Code Accepted."

I liked this episode a lot more than you did, but this was very funny.

Bok R'Mor: "The rabbit in the headlights scene at the very end I will attribute to the old Trek staple of the lingering close shot for dramatic effect, rather than Pike being stunned into incompetence per se."

I feel the same way, but it's funny: the hosts of the Phantastic Geek podcast actually said they will be mad if (in 2025 or whenever) the conclusion of the cliffhanger starts with Pike snapping out of it and barking orders to adjust field harmonics, launch torpedoes, or whatever. They seem to feel strongly that it needs to be followed up on as Pike being paralyzed with indecision and this having consequences (maybe Una relieving him of command?). I don't get it personally, but it's interesting to see the contrasting takes.

@Yanks: "Spock probably should have grabbed the dead adult Gorn to take back to the Enterprise."

Oooh, I hadn't thought of that. Good idea!

@Bok R'Mor and @Jammer: You too had a nice little comedy-duo routine going there! Well played.

@Kyle: "A 5 day blastocyst acts in its own self defense when poked with a needle. Depending on definitions, that is sentient."

Sounds like a basic reflex to me. And even if you disagree, what about a one-day blastocyst? My general point still stands.

@Lynos: "While canon should never come in the face of a great story, the basic concept of it, I think, it important. It allows you to draw straight lines across a history of an imagined universe and trace the cause and effect. It gives the world consistency and realness, which in its turn help us beleive in it more."

Cosigned. I'd add that there's a difference between getting persnickety about the pips on someone's collar, vs. having extensive and repeated encounters with a species in a prequel, when in the original (chronologically later) series they were said to be unknown. Or for that matter dramatically changing the personality of a character like 'Chapel'.

@Booming: "There was always the debate if Starfleet is a military or not. Roddenberry said it wasn't and SNW finally decided to respect his wishes."

This is where you really show the inadvisability of commenting on a show you don't watch. @Jeffrey's Tube was taking this line earlier in the season, while I was insisting they were definitely military; I think JT tacitly acknowledged I was right once we got "Under the Cloak of War", which demonstrates the absurdity of maintaining that M'Benga, and the other Starfleet personnel he and Chapel patch up, are not in fact the combat veterans they quite clearly are.

I liked this. I liked Season 2, although I found it a bit more uneven than Season 1. This was competently done, nitpicks aside. The Gorn looked great, and the zero-gravity fight was very entertaining. I'm okay with them fleshing out the Gorn since the original was beyond silly and has become a punchline. Bring back the Gorn. Sure.

CRITICISM:
I made a reference to "other red lights" in my comments when I was talking about the CW-ish relationships between Chapel and Spock in "Charades". And, well, I am going to discuss another one of my red lights.

They've been going off this entire season where Pike's behavior has been concerned. I found him to be doing too much of the "cool, permissive Dad" routine. I was hoping I was wrong and that it was just that they were showing different sides of him. But darn it, most of Season 2 has been like this except when he became violent on "Lotus Eaters". And even then, that was because he lost all his memories.

I've found him a bit wishy-washy this season, often doing that sort of "confused stammering", albeit often with great comic timing.

But this came to a head during the season cliffhanger. I can't compare it to "Best of Both Worlds". That one was Riker making a decisive action: "Mr. Worf, fire."

This was a strangely extended hand-wringing. His bridgemates are staring at him as he hems and haws. Planets turn. Stars form and die. "Your orders?" But there's none.

Look, I get it. He's upset. He thinks Batel might die. His shipmates have just been beamed aboard the Gorn ship. If he acts, he would go against orders and start a war on the heels of the Klingon War. I get it. It's his Kobayashi Maru.

But you're the Captain of Starfleet's flagship vessel. You need to make a decision, not stand there as galaxies collide and molasses flows downhill.

We need a Captain who is decisive. And we need a cliffhanger that doesn't end on hand-wringing. If this is the way he is, then I can see why Starfleet sent him to go explore, play diplomat, and not fight in the Klingon War.

Where's the Captain from Season 1? Or "Discovery"? Someone subbed him out for the version of the Captain we got in " The Elysian Kingdom".

Most of the rest of the episode was good. I liked the shout-outs to "Aliens" and all that. It was interesting. But the ending left me wanting. And probably not in the way that Paramount+ wants.

Good riddance. S1 had some nice episodes but my god this season was god awful from start to finish (much like this season of The Witcher but that's another story).

With so much utterly terrible writing around hopefully this strike will result in some of them having to find other jobs they're more suited to.

A TOS reboot with these dreadful writers would be worse than DSC since they'd have the whole TOS to humilate and turn into a complete joke.

The actors are mostly decent enough but nothing they can do with this drivel.

1 star for the episode and for the season as a whole. Might have been 1.5 if it hadn't been for the musical episode.

More like gloomy cat

Listening to another podcast about the show (am I the only one who does this?). By the time you are receiving this via my comment, it's basically thirdhand information, but kind of interesting given a lot of the complaints about this show.

The Ringer's Joanna Robinson says she was listening to one of the post-show segments and one of the creators said SNW is "just love stories in space". She cited this approvingly: she's a big "shipper", so her attitude is basically "great, give me more". But I am certain most reading this will not be nearly as pleased that this is the attitude right from the top.

@Rahul: "S1 was much better despite having a couple of episodes that were worse than anything in S2."

@Sevana of Nine: "I liked Season 2, although I found it a bit more uneven than Season 1."

Interesting contrast in opinions! I lean a little closer to Rahul, just because "The Elysian Kingdom" was so godawful it automatically makes the first season more uneven (given that I also thought a couple S1 episodes were very strong). Going back and looking at the S1 comments section, I did comment about how amazingly consistent the show was as late as the seventh episode.
But hey, you guys know how much I enjoy noodling with numbers, so here is the quantitative data on how I rated episodes from each season:

**SEASON ONE**
3.5/3/2.5/3/3.5/3/3/0/2/3.5
Average: 2.7
Median: 3
# of episodes rated < 3: 3

**SEASON TWO**
2.5/3/3/3.75/3/2.5/3.5/3.5/1.5/4
Average: 3.03
Median: 3
# of episodes rated < 3: 3

I guess this suggests I actually don't really agree with either of you per se. The awfulness of "Elysian Kingdom" loomed large in S1, but I can't really see any great disparity in terms of consistency otherwise. If I throw out the highest and lowest ratings from each season, the average changes to 2.94 for S1 and 3.09 for S2, and they remain tied on the other stats. So I guess I would have to say S2 was slightly better AND slightly more consistent just because it didn't include a groaner like "Elysian Kingdom".

@SlackerInc
Which creator was it? I'm not at all surprised, but I would like to know who exactly said it. (If it's Kathryn Lyn, I will be disappointed. Not so much any of the others.)

@SlackerInc,

I too enjoy doing some simple analytics on my ratings just to see how things stack up but I’d put very little weight in just going by the numbers to assess if one season is better than another. For me SNW S2 is one of the weakest seasons of Trek for a number of reasons aside from the fact that I didn’t rate a single episode 3.5*. So not having any outstanding episodes is a big disappointment. SNW S1 had 2 of them (“Memento Mori” and “A Quality of Mercy”).

A huge problem I have with SNW S2 is the dismantling of the Pike character as a captain. I used to be able to respect the character, but now I can’t. He was truly marginalized this season and when focused upon, he didn’t come across as authoritative, decisive — you know, captain-like. Instead he’s always cooking and calling people by their first name during military operations, Nyota this, Erica that… It’s just bad writing that makes the reasonable viewer think less of the character and the show.

Then I think of what SNW S2 accomplished with its purported main threat — the Gorn. Still too many unknowns. What are their motivations? Is it as simple as territorial? If so, you gotta do better. What about their society, etc.? I don’t think SNW knows what it wants to do and if it even cares about canon. Or how will SNW reconcile things?

And we should appreciate that Trek has such a vast canon which provides such a foundation for great story telling without having to re-invent the wheel. Good writers will know how to use extensive canon to their advantage.

Another issue I have with SNW S2 is the balance of episodes. Far too much emphasis on the light-hearted fare and not enough really meaty geopolitical or good sci-fi episodes. Also jarring how it would just switch tone from week to week. What are we to expect from SNW given the roller-coaster we’ve had from S2?

SNW is episodic but I look at it more like TNG/VOY than TOS from the standpoint that it should be building toward something — instead what is the direction this series is heading in? I thought it had a great premise with how Pike could/would do things differently given he knows his dire future. What daring decisions would he make? Instead he spends most of his free time cooking and lets others make some tough calls. Maybe that's it.

@SlackerInc, @Bok

This quotation seemed absurd to me, so I looked it up. Indeed, it is misquoted and misinterpreted by your podcast.

The quote is pulled from a Variety article that ran five days ago. Here's the relevant bit:

"This season took some major risks. What other boundaries are you considering pushing for Season 3?

Goldsman: We’re going to keep going. We genre hop. So where we haven’t been, we will try to go. Henry’s watchwords for Season 2 were, “Let’s do Season 1, just bigger and better.” That’s become the truth of Season 3. We’re always doing the thing that we do best, which is secretly just a lot of relationship stories in space. We’ll keep unfolding those hopefully in ways that are different, in the same way that the tones of our episodes will be different. But yeah, ambition will taper off only when we can’t figure out a thing to do we haven’t done before.

Myers: The joy of doing the show — Akiva and I spent a lot of time on this — is trying to come up with something really great and cool and different for our actors. The more challenging stuff you bring them, the harder they will work. We want to bring them great material so that they will continue to do incredible things."

. . .

So it's not "love stories in space." It's "relationship stories in space." Not only romantic relationships, though those are of course included under the umbrella. "Relationship stories" is a byword for "character stories" in writerspeak. As in, rather than "idea" stories. As in, the show 's focus is on exploring characters and doing character work, not on exploring ideas and novel concepts. This is done by exploring how the characters relate and interact with each other, and also how each one relates with themselves.

. . .

Basically, think Lost in space (but not Lost in Space, heh). Where the focus isn't so much on why there's a smoke monster running around, but on what it means for Jack's daddy issues that there's a smoke monster running around. Get me?

. . .

It isn't really news at this point that this is where the showrunners' interest lies with this show. We've all noticed it and commented on it. It will work for some people; it won't work for others. Personally it's not the storytelling I would choose if given the choice, but I'm still really enjoying it.

@Bok R'Mor: "Which creator was it? I'm not at all surprised, but I would like to know who exactly said it."

I wish I could tell you. "A creator" is all the identification Joanna Robinson gave. You could tweet at her (or whatever Elon is calling it these days) and ask.

@Rahul: "I too enjoy doing some simple analytics on my ratings just to see how things stack up but I’d put very little weight in just going by the numbers to assess if one season is better than another. For me SNW S2 is one of the weakest seasons of Trek for a number of reasons aside from the fact that I didn’t rate a single episode 3.5*."

That makes sense, but isn't that still going by the numbers? It does seem like a valid metric, in any case. But I come up with something different when I apply it. For S1, I rated three episodes 3.5 stars (none higher). In S2, I rated two episodes 3.5 stars, one 3.75, and one 4 stars. So that's a clear win for S2 for my tastes, and three of those highest-rated episodes came in the last four eps of the season (although the fourth was the musical outing that was a miss for me, 1.5 stars). BTW, I rated "Memento Mori" only three stars, but "A Quality of Mercy" was also one of my 3.5 star eps.

"A huge problem I have with SNW S2 is the dismantling of the Pike character as a captain."

It's a valid complaint. I guess it's surprising, given that I agree with you on that, that I seem to have liked S2 better overall. But there's more to a show than one character, and besides which Pike was not exactly killing it in my detested "Elysian Kingdom".

@Jeffrey's Tube: "So it's not 'love stories in space.' It's 'relationship stories in space.' Not only romantic relationships, though those are of course included under the umbrella."

Maybe. I can certainly see why Joanna would interpret it the way she did--if that's even where she got it from (I'm pretty sure she said it was in an interview on an "AfterTrek" or that sort of thing rather than a Variety piece).

"As in, the show 's focus is on exploring characters and doing character work, not on exploring ideas and novel concepts."

Even if that's so, it's not ideal--and based on your conclusion, you appear to agree to an extent. (There was too much of that on Jammer's beloved DS9, I thought.) As I've said many times, I have a great deal of appreciation for character studies and interpersonal dramas ("Six Feet Under" being one of my top three TV shows of all time), but not on Trek except as a bit of seasoning rather than as the main course.

@Jeffrey's Tube
Thanks for finding the original source.

But I think your inner Paramount+ pick-me is getting a little out of hand when you rush to the following very contingent conclusion:
'So it's not "love stories in space." It's "relationship stories in space." Not only romantic relationships, though those are of course included under the umbrella. "Relationship stories" is a byword for "character stories" in writerspeak. As in, rather than "idea" stories.'

I am not at all surprised that the podcaster squeeee'd at the term 'relationship stories' and that her YA fan fic universal translator rendered it 'shipping' to her. Indeed, I would argue that based on what we know of SNW so far, her interpretation ('Hey you guys, let's be too hasty here and trust the showrunners - Ship New Worlds!'), and not your 'Hey guys, let's not be too hasty here, trust the showrunners - this is fine!', is indeed the correct one.

It's jargon of the profession. The meaning is clear if you speak it.

. . .

I think this approach is a combination of:

a) the writers not having enough ideas for "idea" stories

and

b) this just being the version of the show they are most interested in making.

I am sure that "a" is a challenge after something like a thousand hours of episodes of Star Trek already produced, to find ideas for "idea" stories that feel both fresh and compelling. There are parameters to the universe that have been established that they have to work within, as well. (The Orville managed to tell some new big "idea" stories in a Star Trek-like setting with the Kaylon, the Machlans, and the Krill, but those were all races constructed specifically to tell those stories and none of those races--or at least their political roles and relationship with the Union/Federation--could have fit into the established framework of the Star Trek universe at this point.) However, while this makes it challenging, it is certainly extremely possible. I bet the commenters in this thread could offer at least one decent, fresh idea for an "idea" episode each.

So I think we're mainly getting the approach with SNW that we are getting because of "b." Weighted heavily toward "b," at the least. And that's fine. There's nothing inherently wrong with that approach for a Star Trek series.

@Jeffrey's Tube
'It's jargon of the profession. The meaning is clear if you speak it.'

This is great.

@Bok R'Mor: "I am not at all surprised that the podcaster squeeee'd at the term 'relationship stories' and that her YA fan fic universal translator rendered it 'shipping' to her."

LOL! Nice quip. I do want to say that Joanna Robinson is a really good, smart commentator (she wrote for Vanity Fair for seven years before moving to the Ringer). But in this particular area it does seem that her proclivities run more toward the "shipping" lanes than many of us might prefer.

@Jeffrey's Tube: "There are parameters to the universe that have been established that they have to work within, as well. (The Orville managed to tell some new big "idea" stories in a Star Trek-like setting with the Kaylon, the Machlans, and the Krill, but those were all races constructed specifically to tell those stories and none of those races--or at least their political roles and relationship with the Union/Federation--could have fit into the established framework of the Star Trek universe at this point.)"

Solid analysis, JT. A good read. One nitpick: it's "Moclans", not "Machlans", FYI.

From the same article, the showrunners on the Gorn:

"The Gorn are a powerful threat on this show, but they’ve never been much of a factor in any iterations of “Trek” that come later in the timeline. Some of that, of course, is because as they were conceived on “TOS,” the Gorn were a little silly looking — it was just a man in a rubber suit.

Myers: It was hard to do it well. It was hard to do respectfully.

Do you intend to resolve that tension in “Strange New Worlds,” to explain why as the timeline evolves, the Gorn as a threat seem to have diminished?

Myers: Well, this is one I would like to punt to Akiva, but only because a lot of what the Gorn became for the show was a vision that he had — this was something that had not really been explored that we had an opportunity to make in a way that had never been done.

Akiva Goldsman: The Gorn, for me, were not intentionally comedic — they were just executed about as well as they could be executed at that point in the run of the show at that time. Like, it was just a bad suit — and let’s not even talk about the Metrons. But I looked at the intention, which is: scary, scary, scary, Other, Other, Other. One thing that we always do in “Star Trek” is we empathize — that’s in large part the purpose of our show. We’re kind of an empathy generator. It’s a carnival mirror on modern society.

But in our desire to express compassion first, which I think is the right desire, sometimes we forget that real monsters exist. I thought it was important for there to be real monsters in our galaxy. That doesn’t mean that 10 years, two seasons from now, we won’t be having a nice chat with the Gorn. But right now in Seasons 1 and 2 and 3, they’re the monsters. By the way, many of the other “Star Trek” antagonists began as alien, as Other — forgive the use of “alien” — but we learned to connect with them. Not so the Gorn. The Gorn are not understandable to us in this way, not relatable to us in this way. Part of our galaxy is be good, be kind, be empathetic, and also understand that evil exists, because seeing with compassion does mean you should be blind to horror. The Gorn are monsters."

. . .

I submit that it is CRUCIAL to a Trekkian ethos that we come to some deeper understanding of the Gorn eventually. It's fine to start out portraying them like this. It's better than fine, actually--it's good! It works. But only BECAUSE we, the audience, are anticipating that turn. Those later reveals.

. . .

From Inverse:

"Although the Gorn were only briefly mentioned at the start of Season 2, the first season of Strange New Worlds firmly established this infamous reptilian alien species as the dominant villain of the years 2259 and 2260. And while some of SNW Season 1 retcons a lot of what we know about the Gorn from that classic episode “Arena” (the one where Kirk fights a guy in a rubber lizard suit) on paper, SNW is still in relatively safe canon territory. In “Arena” Kirk is told that he’s fighting a Gorn by the Metrons, a fact which SNW writers like Davy Perez have interpreted as canon “wiggle room.” In 2022, Perez told Inverse that “Kirk’s idea of the Gorn is different from what he is being told by the Metrons.” And now, with “Hegemony,” Trek canon is revealing that several members of Starfleet (including Scotty!) were involved in huge skirmishes with the Gorn, well before Kirk’s five-year-mission in The Original Series.

Ever since the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise revealed a more agile Gorn with a tail in the Mirror Universe, various quasi-canon sources have speculated that there are, in fact, several subspecies of Gorn. If true, this would mean that the Gorn we see in SNW don’t contradict TOS. So, could fans hope for one day in which the new, monstrous Gorn are seen side-by-side with the classic rubber-suited Gorn? Goldsman says that’s not how the visual canon of SNW works.

“You will never see the Gorn like that,” he says. “This is the Gorn as we perceive them.”

That said, Akiva Goldsman has been a longtime advocate of bringing the Gorn (and various TOS elements) into the larger shows. And when pressed about his well-documented Gorn fandom, he relents, slightly.

“Yes, it’s true, I’ve been an agitator for the Gorn,” he says with a laugh. “I mean, this goes all the way back to the Gorn skeleton in Lorca’s lab on Discovery. Much less the Gorn neon velvet painting in the Artifact in Picard Season 1, which was painted out [in post-production.] So yes, I’ve always wanted to sell a version of the Gorn. But, our Gorn are real monsters. Compassion and empathy, are the driving themes and intent for our show. But, we also wanted to say that those things don't preclude the existence of monsters. So, that’s the role the Gorn have currently on our show. I'm a believer in kindness, connection, and understanding. I also believe there are monsters out there. And it's our job to show both.”

But, on a nitty-gritty non-thematic level, Goldsman makes it clear that the visual depiction of the Gorn — as well as the overall exact production design of The Orignal Series — will never be recreated for the purposes of visual canon alignment. “This is our version of the Gorn. It’s an interpretation. In the same way, the transporter room on the Enterprise is never gonna look like the transporter room looked in TOS, right? It’s our interpretation of it. The bridge is never going to either. We’re not gonna wake up one day and say, oh, it’s the other bridge.”

And, with that notion — a hypothetical Strange New Worlds episode that features the classic 1960s TOS sets, Goldsman stops himself with a laugh. “Actually, that would be an awesome episode. We should do that.”

. . .

I recently rewatched Arena. Yesterday, in fact. It is only implied in the episode that the Gorn are a race new to Starfleet. Mainly implied by what is NOT said by the characters. Such as Kirk never saying "oh, it's a Gorn!" So yeah. Plenty of wiggle room.

I do really strongly cosign his idea that they are doing their own, more modern interpretation visually and it doesn't need to (and actually shouldn't) match the classic sets. Though I also cosign the suggestion that they just unexpectedly do an episode with all the classic sets and costumes. I'm undecided as to whether they should notice and comment on the differences, or just play it straight.

@Bryan
"Somehow I doubt the SNW Gorn fight with Spock and Chapel will be remembered 50 years like the fight from "Arena" is."

Yes.
I think this is another example of how SNW writers doesn't know how to write shit, in 2 ways:

1- As laughable as it may be today (or even back then), TOS Gorn fight was REAL, a camera and two people fighting, in real time; SNW Gorn Fight simply isn't. It is supposed to be this no-gravity slow motion tense struggle, I think it should've been filmed in one long take, wide shot, instead of a regular fast action scene language, with lots of cuts.

2- TOS Gorn fight was about how Kirk COULDN'T just physically overcome the Gorn. SNW Gorn Fight is a mere bureaucracy. Look how these people we know will not die here will overcome this monster. Booooring...

It’s disappointing to read (from what “Jeffrey’s Tube” posted) about what the show runners (I guess mainly Goldsman) are trying to achieve with the Gorn. And the canon “violation” seems to be about trying to use some technicalities to just allow them to tell the stories they want to tell.

So while saying Trek is about empathy/compassion, here we have the primary antagonist for SNW being 1-dimensional monsters (with more of the same apparently coming in S3). And I get that there should be real monsters in the galaxy. But if you spend 3 episodes out of 20 on the Gorn and there’s nothing more to them than just gory violence — it’s just not good enough from a writing/vision standpoint. We got that point already with “Memento Mori” in S1.

With TNG, you had “I Borg” and VOY introduced a more powerful alien to put the Borg on their heels and see how they’d react. Classic Trek realized it can’t just keep doing “Q Who” and BoBW over and over again.

“Arena” did more for the Gorn in 1 episode than SNW has done in 3. At least we got a sense that the Gorn could offer a merciful killing and that Star Fleet encroached on their territory. And I have zero issues with the green rubber suit — a very effective story was nevertheless told.

So I really don’t like the direction taken with the Gorn on SNW. What I would suggest, which I’ve found adds a great deal of depth to an adversary, is to have a few scenes where Gorn leaders discuss strategy / motivation among themselves. Have them say something about the younger Gorn. Use subtitles. Just because a species is non-humanoid, doesn’t mean it can’t have more texture than just being 1-dimensional monsters.

The first Romulan episode “Balance of Terror” had some terrific dialog scenes among the Romulans which really added to the significance of the show. Similarly with “Errand of Mercy” — the first Klingon episode — with Kor talking to his subordinates about taking over Organia. Goldsman should learn from TOS if he is so obsessed with tying into it.

Again, it comes down to dumb ideas from weaker, immature writers taking charge on nu-Trek.

My main problem with the Nu-Gorn is not they "violate canon". It's that they're unimaginative and dull, and no amount of "wiggle room" can excuse that. They wanted to have a primary absolute evil monster that could not be reasoned with, and that's not unreasonable. That's how the Borg were initially conceived in TNG to great effect. The problem here is that Akiva has a very narrow and cliched idea of what a "monster" is. One of the greatest sins of a creator is to curtail the brainstorming process by settling on the most obvious solutions that come to mind first, and I believe that the Nu-Gorn are largely a product of that. It's as if Akiva thought "monster" and "science fiction" and what's the first thing that comes to mind? The Alien franchise of course. There was one problem. It was already established that they're reptilian. I can imagine him bringing this quandary to the writing room. There's a brief pause. Everyone looks at one another and says in unison, "Jurassic Park!"

These movies worked and were so well received because sci-fi horror hadn't been done quite like that before, both conceptually and with innovative execution that stunned audiences. These fresh takes on the genre, along with the whole mystery of the Strange and Unknown, were more than enough to compensate for their one big handicap: the fact that they don't really communicate. They just do scary monstrous things. What is fine for genre horror is actually anathema for Star Trek, a show where Communication happens to be one of its big unifying themes, particularly in SNW. So there's a huge expectation that communication back and forth will be the primary go-to, even if it's entirely hostile and uncooperative. That at least properly frames the enemy within Trek's scientific-utopian framework, where everything that is capable of being known and understood eventually will be, not necessarily that everyone will get along. It also gives the audience something to grok beyond vague amorphous chaos, which cannot sustain interest for very long. It is unacceptable to wait at least three seasons for the barest of fundamentals. Even the laconic Borg gave us their raison d'etre in short pithy statements right off the hop.

I would have been okay with the Gorn being more Hirogen-like in mentality and appearance. In many ways the Hirogen are like the Delta quandrant's answer to the Klingons, so it makes sense that they would not exist alongside each other. The concept would need to be innovated beyond simply being a more mysterious, laconic, and intractable version of the Klingons. Fortunately with how little TOS developed the Gorn, there was plenty of "wiggle room" for SNW to do just that.

@Bryan

I do often genuinely wonder if NuTrek writers and producers simply sit down and say to one another, 'What can we reference today? What would be cool to riff off?' Moments like Batel the Gorn Queen getting hissed at face to face by a drone are so beyond blatant that I can't understand what the writers and producers are thinking including them.

The sheer amount of effort they put into being derivative/doing homage/swiping is stunning. Do they expect us to cheer and say 'See what you did there'? 'Wow, this is better than something actually new'?

(And I'm fully aware that I'm probably only catching a minority of the references they're actually deploying as I haven't seen half of the most popular US series and films over the past 20 years.)

I have to concur with the above comments about the Gorn. My main issue is that one of the major points in Arena was to challenge the gut reactions and assumptions of the enterprise crew. They were horrified by the Gorn, rubber suit and all, and assumed he was just a monster, vicious and implacable. But as the story unfolds we were asked to question those assumptions, we were asked to consider that perhaps the federation was at least partially responsible for this confrontation after thoughtlessly encroaching into territory the Gorn considered theirs. Ultimately Arena presented nuance and forced introspection. However, SNW’s take on the Gorn regresses from those ideas to the position that you actually can and should judge a book by its cover. Appearances can’t in fact be deceiving. And reactionary violence in the face of the unknown is totes cool as long as the thing you’re killing isn’t “one of us”.

I’d also point out that looking for “wiggle room” in canon is a bad starting point. Canon should be a resource not an obstacle. You don’t have to force things to fit into a preconceived box when you literally have infinite creative possibilities to conjure up. And even if you do insist on raiding TOS for ideas, at least don’t then make those ideas derivative of another well established sci-fi franchise. I’m wondering if we’ll find out next season that the Gorn have acid for blood.

Yeah, even though I really liked this while watching, you guys are making some compelling points.

It's been my distinct impression for some time that Goldsman doesn't really have a strong feel for what is and isn't "Trek" and Myers is the one who does as much as he can to move things in that direction from what Goldsman starts out wanting.

These interviews reinforce that impression.

@Jeffrey's Tube
Agreed.

I'd go a little further and argue that Kurtzman and Goldsman et al* aren't so much interested in what Trek is or isn't - they're interested in turning Trek into a generic sci-fi action franchise ('pew pew'), latterly with strong YA romance elements. The former element is what they're here for.

The question for me is has Paramount looked into the numbers and demographics and mandated that a Star Wars + Twilight skin suit over the Trek brand WILL be a winner, and that Kurtzman, Goldsman and the rest will be responsible for turning it into one, or have the writers and producers come to this conclusion all by themselves (and Twitter)?

*And yes, I do recognise that individual writers and producers may represent an older Trek ethos. But NuTrek seems to have more producers than any other staff member, meaning such voices are probably swamped.

@SlackerInc
Also agree. The discussion about the Gorn is proving very interesting. Thanks, Jammer!

@Rahul, I fully agree.

To follow up on this, and something I haven't seen mention here yet I believe, is the killing of the Gorn youngster by La'an, and the lack of response from Pike or the other away team members as if it were, unquestionable, the right thing to do. Within the context of SNW we can, of course, say that La'an has PTSD and hence trigger happy when it comes to Gorn, and/or that no one cares because the Gorn are evil space monsters now, yet to kill a child of an obviously sentient species who wasn't a direct threat feel very wrong, and not something I watch Trek for.

I miss the time when the loss of (any) life was seen as disastrous and would feel like a personal failure to the person in command.

@Gilligan’s Starship said:
"Even though we may feel the stories violate canon or they are not created in the same vein as the originals, we’ve seen that before: Basil Rathbone, Peter Cushing, Benedict Cumberbatch & Robert Downey are distinctly different as Sherlock Holmes, but I’m sure more actors will continue to play the role"


I don't think that Kirk is the same type of character as Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes originates in stories, and every reader could imagine his/her own Holmes and Watson. The story is a just a blueprint.

While James T. Kirk is William Shatner (and vice versa). His mannerisms, his charm, his ego.

And seeing someone else in that role is like wanting to meet with a good friend, but a different person with the same name shows up.


I am not nostalgic for Kirk, I am nostalgic for Shatner-Kirk.
So if someone else shows up, it does nothing for me, except point large signs to the fact that this is a different person and "real" Kirk, "real" Uhura, "real" Chapel, "real" Scotty would behave differently.

(I do like the actors playing that new versions of the characters, but I wish that they would have been given new roles, and I am really afraid it all is pointing towards a remake of TOS. )

I agree with Bok R'Mor Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 12:39pm (UTC -5)

Totally bored of the references/rip-offs of the Aliens franchise.

A fascinating idea is embedded in this episode - that galactic (or at least solar) activity influences Gorn on what may be an instinctual level (though could be some sort of ritual responses for all we know).

Developing this idea would be very interesting.

The Gorn babies look very silly.

The Gorn adult looked fantastic - great design.

The no-gravity slow fight with the adult was surely a sly nod to the very slow fight TOS Kirk had with an adult Gorn.

If you ignore plot-holes and the usual silliness, this was fun enough.

I liked Scotty as well, though it would have been better to give Pelia a chance to show us her brilliance (since she seems to have tough every Star-Fleet engineer).

(And I do find the regularly appearance of Kirk rather tiresome.)

****

"ORDERS CAPTAIN !?"

"Uh... chicken wings and some whipped potato..?"

It's a bummer not to have anything to chat with you all about for a while.

@Jammer, even if you aren't going to do reviews, could we get a "Foundation" chat thread? I'm really loving that show right now.

I don't think it's a very discussion-worthy episode, but reaching consensus about how the new Gorn are less than ideal seems like as good a leaving off point as any heh.

The last few days, while I work, I've been rewatching TOS again by having it on in the background.

And watching these early episodes, a thought has occurred to me:

What if, instead of being made Chapel, the SNW Chapel character had been made Rand? With nothing else changed about the character except that she was a Yeoman (a role that would need to be slightly redefined for modern times) rather than a nurse?

All day I've been consumed by the thought that this would work MUCH better for canon than her being Chapel. Whitney as Rand had spark and spunk that Barrett's Chapel never did. Just watch Miri or Charlie X.

They could have kept her history with M'Benga and her war history. They could have even kept the relationship with Spock. It would be less awkward with TOS continuity than him ever having had a relationship with Chapel.

What do we all think?

. . .

(And also, yes--even making allowances that Shatner is a one of a kind in a way where trying to emulate him in any meaningful sense would come off as parody--Wesley's Kirk just . . . isn't. I remain very pleased with Peck's Spock, Gooding's Uhura, and Quinn's Scotty, however.)

@SlackerInc: "@Jammer, even if you aren't going to do reviews, could we get a "Foundation" chat thread? I'm really loving that show right now."

I don't know if there's enough interest to justify it. Maybe there could be some sort of "other sci-fi" page as a catch-all for miscellaneous things at some point, but I'm even wary of that, because I generally try to stick to the core content.

That's too bad if so, because honestly I don't know that there's ever been a better science fiction show on TV. The only thing that surpasses it for me is the recent movie "Dune".

@Jeffrey's Tube, I like your suggestion of Rand and continue to feel the same about Wesley.

I just re-watched 'Arena' - it's probably been 35 years since I last saw it on the Sunday morning re-runs of TOS we had - and there's really no way to square the SNW 'Gorn' with the TOS Gorn, and there's no way I can see to square the huge difference in what the TOS Gorn and the SNW 'Gorn' are intended to represent.

As our TOS stalwart @ldh2023 eloquently puts it, the problem with the SNW 'Gorn' is that they're introduced in TOS to embody a parable against prejudice, whereas SNW, to paraphrase Goldsman, they're introduced to say prejudice is justified. These two standpoints are diametrically opposed to each other and cannot be reconciled.

I was surprised that 'Arena' did not actually create the continuity discrepancy with Spock, Uhura and Scotty that I had presumed: Kirk is whisked off the bridge and Uhura screams, and while Uhura, Spock and Scotty don't blurt out anything about the Gorn based on their experiences in SNW (haha), there is a moment of glanced recognition between Uhura and Spock later on that, if we're being extremely generous, could be interpreted as some kind of silent understanding about some previous awareness among them of the Gorn, which they perhaps haven't shared with others.

The visual continuity is difficult, it has to be said*. Not in terms of the 2023 Gorn not being actors in rubber suits** but rather the fact that the TOS Gorn captain is described and portrayed as being very strong let lumbering, whereas the xenomorph/velociraptor Gorn in SNW are depicted as being more agile, leaner and of course have prehensile, barbed tails. There are several get-out clauses, of course: the TOS Gorn captain is shown in the Remaster to have nictating membranes, and we might argue that he is struggling in the climate og the Metron's selected world, so his sluggishness is circumstantial not inherent; secondly, the tails may belong to certain sub-species of Gorn and not others; and thirdly, we've mainly seen infant chestburster 'Gorn' in SNW. But this is all a stretch to cover up the writers and producers of SNW's urge to turn the TOS Gorn into xenomorphs.

*On the issue of visual continuity in NuTrek, I'd strongly recommend reading Bernd Schneider's comprehensive piece here:
https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/visual-continuity.htm

I'd also second the idea suggested above that if SNW is going to do gimmick episodes like 'Those Old Scientists' (which was excellent) and 'Subspace Rhapsody' (which was dreadful) then they should embrace the potential of it and do an episode that is visually entirely TOS, à la 'Relics' and 'Trials and Tribble-ations'.

**I have absolutely zero problem with the rubber suit. It didn't spoil my enjoyment in the early 1980s and it doesn't spoil my enjoyment now. I have an imagination and I'd rather see a rubber suited Gorn than a xenomorph and a fusillade of references to other films and series - if I have to choose between the two.

I'd also add that the writing and storytelling in 'Arena' are masterpieces of simplicity and straightforwardness compared to anything in SNW - and that only 'Under the Cloak of War' comes anything close to approaching the kind of morality tale shown in 'Arena' it practically any other episode of classic Trek.

Popcorn xenomorphs are all fine and good in terms of a quick forgettable hit but it's the man in the rubber suit who stands the test of time. Every time.

@Bok R'Mor: That visual continuity article was really interesting, thanks. The amount of research that must have involved, holy cow.

For the people who have a hard time reconciling these Gorn with the TOS Gorn there a simple answer.

That Gorn captain was a very old Gorn, an equivalent of a human elderly person.

He's therefore is slow and has synthetic eyes to replace the natural ones he lost.

Simple answer

there was one thing that bothered me. The Gorn alreay destroyed a Federation ship.

That should constitute an act of war. The fact Starfleet is still trying to not antagonize the Gorn suggests they really don't think they can win a war against them or would lose too much and are not ready after the last war or would possibly face the Klingons as well.

Still, it seems they are demonstrating unacceptable weakness in letting the Gorn just attack and destroy their ships without repercussions and still trying to accomodate them to avoid a full war.

In "Arena" you would think Spock's tricorder would register the enemy was Gorn instead of just cold blooded alien life as he had personal experience with them before. I guess sine they originally couldnt be detected by tricorders, they had some kind of bioenginerring to be impervious to scans, and they may have updated that so Spock couldn't be sure who they were but suspected.

Sulu also doesnt identify the ship thought it could be of a new design

I actually like the whole "they instinctually react to light" and all the strange things we're learning. It makes them sound genuinely alien instead of just unusual looking humanoids.

Huh. I forgot in Arena that federation weapons were ineffective against Gorn shields. If that's the case an the Gorn have more advanced weapons tech back then it makes more sense why the Federation would try to acommodate them even though they'ce attacked federation ships as they at least need to buy time to develop effective weapons.

@SlackerInc
Absolutely. Ex Astris Scientia has lots of very comprehensive investigations covering a wide variety of topics - he's done the hard work so we don't have to! A full list of investigations (and everything else) is available here, enjoy:
https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/sitemap.htm

@Dave
'That Gorn captain was a very old Gorn, an equivalent of a human elderly person.He's therefore is slow and has synthetic eyes to replace the natural ones he lost. Simple answer'

As good an answer as any, I suppose. Are you suggesting he lost his tail to an injury (like Martok lost his eye) and that contributed to him being even less agile?

(I actually don't think the eyes present much of a problem continuity-wise; right back to ENT my presumption was always that the TOS Gorn compound eyes represented an outer protective membrane, against bright light.)

See, the problem here is we're having to scramble to fill gaps caused by a) what we've seen of the Gorn before not matching b) the new xenomorph Gorn. As I said way up this thread, the only way to reconcile TOS and SNW is to not do so; one has to simply discard TOS and say the new 'Gorn' are like the new 'Chapel' - an over-writing of canon and continuity to make things more attractive to a newer audience.

I found this to be a nice tense action piece with an adequate cliffhanger (I could've done with less of Pike's dramatic gawking-at-the-viewscreen-instead-of-making-a-command-decision). I wonder when and if we'll see the conclusion. This episode was also a nice antidote to the significant silly quotient this season has had (some of it bordering on the unwatchable), but not enough to bring the season's batting average about .500 and overall a disappointing follow-up to the much better first season.

In general when it comes to evaluating media, I really don't put much stock in post hoc analysis that says things like "maybe the first Gorn we saw wasn't actually representative of the Gorn, maybe he was just a tired old man." It may be fun to think up creative ways to square the circle or maybe people will really stop at nothing to try to defend their favourite show, but I typically see this as disingenuous mental masturbation. And maybe the guy I'm using as an example was being facetious but I don't mean to single him out since there are serious attempts at this sort of logic within the comment section for almost every episode of anything Star Trek.

The way I see it, the "Text" -- the bare facts that anyone can confirm with their own eyes -- of any given episode is 'sacred' in the sense that you take whatever you can directly infer from it but you don't try to impute things that aren't there just because they aren't a logical impossibility. Because the only things that truly exists in fiction are what it shows or tells you. Understanding that is the first priority. The next best thing is Creator Intent, which you can usually get from their books and interviews assuming that there's no substantial basis for extreme skepticism that insinuates dishonesty on the creator's part. So for example, if there's nothing in the text of the episode that says the TOS Gorn is a decrepit old man, there's no reason to suggest that. Furthermore, if the creators have clearly spelled out that they're doing their own thing and don't really care all that much about continuity and canon, there's no reason to invent excuses for the creators that even the creators themselves would pass up.

And just to clarify, it's perfectly fine to say "your take on this episode is misguided because the following little details may have escaped your notice", OR to say "actually in a prior episode, they clearly established that such was the case, which provides a sufficient explanation/justification for what we saw in the present episode." There is no fallacious TV logic in either of those cases as far as I'm concerned.

I don't know if any of this comes across as really obvious or pedantic but I'm putting my foot down after years of this BS, so deal :P

@Bryan
'The way I see it, the "Text" -- the bare facts that anyone can confirm with their own eyes -- of any given episode is 'sacred' in the sense that you take whatever you can directly infer from it but you don't try to impute things that aren't there just because they aren't a logical impossibility. Because the only things that truly exists in fiction are what it shows or tells you.'

I second this, definitely. We shouldn't have to come up with ad hoc excuses to explain creative decisions that clash. (I think the term 'mental masturbation' is a little harsh, though.)

Just out of curiosity, what's your stance on contradictory facts on screen or later retcons? The most immediate example that comes to mind was when Wesley stated explicitly in 'Samaritan Snare' that the Klingons had joined the Federation (Picard did not correct him), and when a Klingon captain was portrayed with the Federation and Klingon symbols behind him in 'Heart of Glory', implying that the Klingons were Federation members or in some kind of formal confederation with the Federation.

The real reason for all this is that in early TNG, the original idea was that the Klingons had indeed joined the Federation. It was meant to be an embodiment of the Trekkian ideal of overcoming differences - even with one's most bitter enemies. I don't recall why it was retconned (probably for practical dramatic reasons), but I think it's an example relevant to your position here and to what we're willing to accept or otherwise about the Gorn.

@Bok R'Mor

"I think the term 'mental masturbation' is a little harsh, though."

Possibly, but I mean it's kind of like that in the same way that headcanon is, only we wouldn't normally call other people's headcanon that because it's just a harmless bit of fun assuming that everyone's on the same page that it's merely headcanon. The ad hoc/post hoc explanations are worse because I feel like people are knowingly making shit up and passing it off as legit because in the case of the Gorn, you simply just wouldn't posit the old man hypothesis unless the SNW Gorn episodes existed -- it just wouldn't make sense without the new context. And whats more, I don't think the TOS creators would've taken kindly to that interpretation either, particularly because they're at pains to frame the fight in a certain formidiable way even if they're not entirely successful. Only a creator has the legitimacy to unilaterally rewrite history like that, which brings me to your next point...

"Just out of curiosity, what's your stance on contradictory facts on screen or later retcons?"

Official retcons can be annoying for some but are sometimes necessary for sake of telling a better story. I'm not sure if the "Klingons had joined the Federation" is the worst offender and might be called a 'soft retcon' rather than a hard one that is more difficult to square since there are probably few ways to think about it where times change and the showrunners opted not to show the change. Perhaps the Klingons didn't 'join' the Federation in the same way that the Vulcans did but were in independent alliance with them in such a way that allowed for them to pull away at any time. It's hard for me not to see the Klingons as anything but an independent empire whether they're allied to the Federation or not. This sort of explanation isn't ad hoc either because it doesn't require me to rewrite history in a way that clashes with the original intent or vision. The writers also have the right to have certain plot details unfold off-screen. Ideally they would explicitly state that such had happened, but sometimes the audience needs to infer for themselves. When there's an obvious gap that is begging to be filled and presents no necessary contradiction I think it's okay for the audience to suggest intuitive explanations for that gap. But when the old and new simply cannot be intuitively reconciled I think it's up to the creators to say "sorry but that's a retcon" and that's that.

The problem of contradictory facts that are shown on screen, including those within a single episode, tends to fall prey to the same sort of problematic logic from fans so I don't agree with that practice either. For example -- this will be seen as a quibble and there are surely more egregious cases than this -- when Enterprise-D needs their shields to be continuously up, and yet they simultaneously beam a bunch of people on board. That's a case for the writers to say "Oops, we messed up" -- and they really have admitted such back when Trek writers cared more about consistency and such. The best we can do is nod to that and move on to other things. And so it is when a "we messed up" explanation is never given but seems to be called for. It's better to assume that that's all it is rather than try to nerd out about it.

@Bryan
I think there'll always be a certain level of ad hoc excuses that have to be made to simply avoid cognitive dissonance. For example, I *have* to interpret Wesley's line as meaning 'When the Klingons joined *with* the Federation,' even though that's explicitly *not* what he said. Likewise, the background symbols in 'Heart of Glory' have to be interpreted as simply indicating an alliance of equals, although why show them at all really, then.

There are dozens of similar (and worse) examples so I simply picked the first two that popped into my head and I have to concede I don't think there's a definitive rule that can cover all cases. When re-watching 'Arena' I was struck by the crew consistently saying 'screens' when referring to what have since been retconned as 'shields'. But obviously while we're not meant to dwell on such a minor and superficial difference, it's still there. If I recall correctly in 'The Cage' Pike and the rest of the crew use lasers, not phasers - same thing.

To take all this back to the Gorn and this episode there are definitely limits as to what can be accepted in terms of re-imaginings, retcons and ad hoc solutions. This thread has been full of ad hoc excuses to make it make sense; I've been responsible for a few myself. But when it gets to the point that entire scenes can only make sense if we deploy such excuses - such as why the Cayuga wasn't searched for survivors before it was turned into a posthumously heroic fiery frisbee - then we have to put that down to bad writing, I think.

Likewise with the Gorn themselves. Retcons are one thing (Just look at the Borg) but I'm not sure the creators of the Gorn would approve of the species being turned into the ethical opposite of the message that was intended in 'Arena'. Many would say that doesn't matter.

The first Trill we see on screen in TNG looks nothing like the Trill we see every week on DS9. Therefore, DS9 takes place in a separate universe entirely.

. . .

Same logic I'm hearing here.

I know that Chapel has to be fine in order to show up on TOS. That said, is anyone else wondering if her being the sole survivor is less a case of her having Plot Armor and more a case of something sinister? It might just be me, but watching how she acts after she is "rescued" makes me just a little bit uneasy. Seems like there is something off there...

@Jeffrey's Tube
Then get your hearing checked as all you're hearing is the rustling of your own strawmen.

Continuity or canon or whatever you want to call it, is just fan service. Nobody who comes new to these shows or has only a fleeting interest will care about changes like the Gorn were this or that. I never much cared about changes to canon if it(NuTrek) had maintained the spirit of Star trek which it really didn't. It doesn't matter if the Gorn are portrayed as monsters if it leads to some kind of interesting explanation why they behave that way which then maybe opens a way to coexistence. Will it go down that route, probably not and that is the actual problem for me. Who cares that it doesn't respect a TOS episode that in popular culture is mostly seen as a joke?!

I'm baffled that people are still struggling with the fact that the NuTrek shows are simply a different form of entertainment. It has been more than 10 seasons of NuTrek. These are soapy space adventure shows for teens and tweens. I have made my peace with it.

Was in a bit of a rush.

There are important reasons why Paramount+ pagh-wraith/promoter @Jeffrey's Tube's supposed Trill 'gotcha' crashes and burns like all those screaming Cayuga survivors.

Firstly, @Jeffrey's Tube is entirely correct on one point: it is of course undeniably true that the Trills from Jadzia on bear little to no resemblance to Odan from 'The Host' (both host and symbiont look different, act different, have different abilities and limitations like transporter use, different history with the Federation). The reason for this is simply that the producers preferred Terry Farrell with Famke Janssen's make-up ('The Perfect Mate') after make-up trials, and the transporter limitations on the Odan Trill would have been simply unworkable on DS9 (remember the transporter in Trek was actually designed to avoid having show shuttle landing sequences), and the need to create a prior Curzon/Sisko relationship. It's also true we're left with no in-universe explanation for these differences - only fan conjecture. But that brings me to:

There weren't really any glaring or persistent continuity issues between TNG and DS9 beyond the Trill issue. SNW and the Discoverse generally are littered with them in every conceivable way, as we all know and have discussed multiple times in multiple threads relating to both series: 'Chapel', the Spock/'Chapel' romance, La'an/Khan, etc., just in SNW. So the SNW Gorn are just one more example that reinforcing existing concerns, whereas the Trill problem could and had to be overlooked at the time.

Thirdly, I'll help @Jeffrey's Tube out here as he wracks his brains for his paymasters. If 'Relics' and 'Trials and Tribble-ations' hadn't happened, we would have been able to explain the Gorn and the post-Odan Trills away as updated visuals due to advances in make-up, which was the way to deal with the Klingon forehead problem before those two episodes explicitly stated that visual continuity was canon. So this rule about continuity is actually something that the writers and producers of TNG and DS9 introduced and then insisted upon, not those pesky fans.

I've already stated that I'm not that bothered by canon and continuity as one might assume. I can see both arguments. I like and accept 'Chapel' so obviously I'd be a massive hypocrite not to permit a reboot/retcon of the Gorn. My problem with them is with swiping from other franchises. The Trill problem at least wasn't reliant upon copying whole scenes and shots from other series or films.

Okay, have to rush again. Will have to return to this later.

(Tl;dr - two wrongs don't make a right and just because DS9 made a big mistake it doesn't mean it's still not a whopping mistake that also applies to the SNW Gorn as well.)

Well I suppose the SNW showrunners could have opted to call them the "Zorn" instead and we'd be none the wiser since it would NEVER occur to us that these Xenomorph-derived monsters have anything to do with the Gorn we know and love from TOS. Then you'd only hear complaints about how dull and derivative they are and not how they also managed to undermine a pop cultural icon in one fell swoop. I mean, I barely even watched TOS nor care about it all that much and yet their dorky shenanigans is one of the few TOS hallmarks that somehow left an indelible impression on me, and quite fondly too. But as I've said before, that isn't my main complaint since blind adherence to any and all canon isn't one of my priorities. Especially when it comes to TOS obviously.

If the argument is simply 'writers and producers should be free to do whatever they want, all the time' I don't see why any of us are here discussing Trek at all.

We should just restrict ourselves to mindless, uncritical praise of everything we are lucky enough to receive.

What happens, though, when it is the writers and producers themselves who are responsible for canon and continuity restrictions? Are we meant to applaud sometimes and not other times?

As I said up-thread, I'm no stickler for canon and continuity. But internal consistency is preferable. Sitting and watching NuTrek and being forcibly reminded of ever other media franchise again and again isn't really about canon and continuity though, is it?

@ Bok

"[Only the stuff that supports the conclusion I want counts.]"

'K.

@Bryan
This doesn't undermine the iconic gorn because Snw has little societal impact beyond trek fanden.

@Jeffrey's Tube
'"[Only the stuff that supports the conclusion I want counts.]" K.'

I don't think you need to be that hard on yourself: there's a whole universe of Trek before NuTrek, you know.

Curse you autocorrect

@Booming
If it's any consolation, 'fanden' means 'the devil' in Norwegian and is by extension also a swearword.

Quite appropriate in the context, actually.

Season 1 & 2 Grading Summary...

01x01 - Strange New Worlds / 3.00
01x02 - Children of the Comet / 4.00
01x03 - Ghost of Illyria / 3.50
01x04 - Memento Mori / 4.00
01x05 - Spock Amok / 3.00
01x06 - Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot / 2.50
01x07 - The Serene Squall / 3.00
01x08 - The Elysian Kingdom / 3.00
01x09 - All Those Who Wander / 3.00
01x10 - A Quality of Mercy / 4.00

3.3 Average

02x01 - The Broken Circle / 1.50
02x02 - Ad Astra Per Aspera / 2.00
02x03 - Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow / 3.00
02x04 - Among the Lotus Eaters / 2.00
02x05 - Charades / 2.50
02x06 - Lost in Translation / 3.00
02x07 - Those Old Scientists / 4.00
02x08 - Under the Cloak of War / 3.50
02x09 - Subspace Rhapsody / 4.00
02x10 - Hegemony / 2.50

2.8 Average

Season 2 grades quite a bit lower than season 1 for me.

But it also gave us 2 trek classics (Those Old Scientists and Subspace Rhapsody)

Captain Pike took a major step back IMO, to the point I thought he was better written in DSC season 2 than this season.

Even though I graded Hegemony average, I only did it because of the large amount of plot armor, not the Gorn. I have no issue with our new baddie or some rubber suit worn in 1967 or the cheesiest fight ever filmed. Quite the cliffhanger.

I still love to watch this show, even when it stumbles. It upsets me at times, but it doesn't piss me off like DSC.

I think the cast is one of the best assembled and have grown to love all the characters. (yes even Pelia a little bit)

I'm really looking forward to season 3... too bad we'll be waiting for a couple of years for it.

@ Bok

Well I see your rhetoric has devolved into "I'm rubber, you're glue" now, so I guess I'll leave you to play with yourself on this playground.

You guys, I just went back to look at "Arena" for the first time in decades, and there's no way we should be trying to make that canon for anything. It looks absolutely ridiculous. As @Booming said, "Who cares that it doesn't respect a TOS episode that in popular culture is mostly seen as a joke?!"

@Bryan, you're basically trying to ban fanwanking. Good luck with that!

@Booming: "These are soapy space adventure shows for teens and tweens."

Yeah, that's fair. Same is true for "Stranger Things" and "The Mandalorian", and that can be fun (though both of those shows are very uneven).

@SlackerInc

"you're basically trying to ban fanwanking. Good luck with that!"

Yeah, I think that may be a better term to describe what I'm talking about. However, I wouldn't want to put a stop to ALL fanwanking. Only when it's used as "evidence" in a serious debate about the merits of an episode to try to buffer it from legitimate criticism, or when someone has a bone to pick with humble upholders of the Text about "What Really Happened". I already stated that headcanon when understood as such is fine, which is why I didn't tenaciously shoot down C.T. Phillips' overimaginative "Eichmann Rah" theory, even though I strongly disagree with it.

I haven't watched "Arena" in a very long time (and maybe I should), but I am definitely in the "Arena is way overrated by the TOS fandom" camp.

My impression is that "Arena" most definitely isn't regarded by Trek fans or (less importantly popular culture writ large) mostly as a joke -- ridiculous to suggest that. What is mocked is the green rubber suit and thus the representation of the Gorn. But I got zero issues with it. Like I said, "Arena" is about the story being told, bigger issues (mercy/compassion etc.) being explored and from that standpoint, it is one of the more memorable Trek episodes. Do folks really need to see awesome special effects and fight scenes to feel gratified? Would hope not...

My impression is also that "Arena" isn't overrated. For me, it's an easy 3.5* and I am confounded by how Jammer only rates it 1.5*. (And that's even with reading something a long time ago that he did his TOS ratings very quickly or something.) Folks might want to check out what "Idh2023" wrote about "Arena" very recently.

For SNW to ignore such an iconic episode like "Arena" for what it said about the Gorn is inexcusable, especially when SNW has shown it can do its homework like when it riffed off "Balance of Terror". If SNW "ignored" a forgettable classic Trek episode and did its thing, it wouldn't be a big deal.

@Jammer: Just watch ten seconds of the fight choreography in "Arena". It's actually worse than anything someone would try to get away with in a parody of cheesy old sci-fi B-movies. No joke, it's that bad.

@Jeffrey's Tube
Next time, plan more thought-out arguments (and 'gotchas') and you won't have to flee from debates you yourself started.

@SlackerInc @Jammer @Rahul
I actually found 'Arena' to be very enjoyable indeed despite not having seen it in decades. The fight and make-up and special effects (not to mention the acting and storytelling) are naturally in that melodramatic 1960s style like the rest of TOS, but overall I think it holds up very well. Very Trekkian. I'm not sure what people are expecting from it. Perhaps I haven't seen as much of the pop-cultural mockery of 'Arena' in other series/sources as others have, I don't know.

@SlackerInc
I don't want to go off-topic but I resisted Stranger Things for years precisely for that reason. Finally gave in and binged it last year. I was extremely impressed and wished I'd watched it sooner. So that kind of series can definitely work well if done right.

What I find amusing is that Jammer means wailling in German:)

@SlackerInc

"Just watch ten seconds of the fight choreography in "Arena". It's actually worse than anything someone would try to get away with in a parody of cheesy old sci-fi B-movies. No joke, it's that bad."

Truth, but you have to hand it to Shatner... he certainly was putting every effort in to make it as good as possible considering the 25 cents they spent on the episode.

@Yanks: If only the guy in the rubber suit expended that level of effort! I just kept wondering, what on Earth is that guy doing?!?

@Bok R'Mor: Resistance is futile! I myself watched the first season of "Stranger Things" when it came out, thought it was fine but not so amazing as others did. Then last year my daughter and wife wanted to watch so I caught up with them. I thought there was the occasional episode that was as great as everyone was saying, but as I mentioned earlier I also thought it was very uneven (more so than the first season, which was solid but unexceptional in either direction).

You guys are aware that ST is made up, right?

@Dirty Dancer

"You guys are aware that ST is made up, right?"

Bite your tongue!!

Just about died laughing when I saw that we got our own version of a "slow motion" Gorn fight. Did they put them in zero G on purpose just for that?

4/4 stars.

SNW season 2 is the gold standard of modern Trek largely due to it skirting the failures of its contemporaries. It’s not a “12 hour movie” full of plot holes and absurd, galaxy-in-peril stakes. The cast of characters is likable, competent, in control of their emotions most of the time, and above all, three dimensional. (Yes, even Ortegas.) Despite being another prequel, it feels like it has its own stories to tell, and its own contributions to the universe, such as with the Gorn, who are now a compelling villain thanks to some patient world building.

I hope the studios and streaming platforms pay the damn actors and writers so that we can get on with a season 3.

@Gorn with the Wind

Spot on.

I did not watch thes episode until today. Except for the cliffhanger it could have been a TOS script but made today. They do avoid conflict and solves it mainly by brain and by combining their quilities.

SNW has been a real hit, Seasonoen feelgood "Spok amok", Musicals, Thrilling. Only minus to few episodes and the cliffhanger.

@Dirty Dancer

Yes, but there seems to be an a minority that realises it. In itself it is a good evidence of a good show when people can identifying with it.

What a fantastic season of Star Trek! Just finished it and I am genuinely upset there is not more to binge, first time I can say that about NuTrek. Normally, I would be annoyed with this sort of sudden cliffhanger, but they earned it - I want more!

Just so well-balanced and executed the creatives behind this series are a slam dunk.

This series is like the Borg – resistance is futile!

Simply put, the Gorn aren’t interesting villains. Their motivations are slim (and not at all credible), and none of the Gorn “characters” have had names or spoken any dialogue yet. In other words, they’re just faceless monsters. Booooring. I’d put them about on par with the Swarm aliens in Voyager’s “The Swarm”, who at least had the decency to only appear in one episode.

Still, the episode wasn’t totally without merit. Martin Quinn is indeed perfectly cast as Scotty, and it was nice to see how the characters reacted to the situation they were in. I was sure Batel would die in this episode, and I’m still pretty sure she’ll die in part two. Chapel being the ONLY survivor on the Cayuga is indeed silly. Ortegas is the Tom Paris of this series - her only defining characteristic is that she's an excellent pilot who loves being an excellent pilot.

The ending was clearly trying to match “Mr. Worf, fire” with no actual “Mr. Worf, fire” moment. Good luck with that.

Finally got around to streaming the second series then and, on the whole, enjoyed it. Couple of observations:

1. They never seemed to get to any 'Strange New Worlds' - the closest they got was one they visited 5 years previously! I'd like to see them doing a bit more 'boldly going where no one has gone before...' - like Jim used to (will do?).

2. Speaking of Jim, Paul Wesley as Kirk reminds me more of Jim Carey's take on SNL than classic Shatner. It's a shame as Wesley seems a perfectly decent actor - but he just isn't really Jim Kirk is he!

Gonna have to disagree with @BigAl. I love Paul Wesley as Kirk. I wasn't quite sure after the finale of season one (really just needed to see more), but after seeing him in this season, I can confidently say that dude is Kirk as fuck. I genuinely think it is perfect casting.

Interesting. I think I usually would have given this episode a slight reduction for being a bit by the numbers (albeit with truly impressive production values), yet after the recent batch of cartoon crossovers, Spock becoming a human because DNA and space anomalies causing episodes to turn into musicals, this felt like a nice contrast.

And sure, hey, if part of SNWs mission is to be a modern variant of classic trek, of course there's gotta be a cliffhanger. Fair enough.

Like the new Scotty. Of course the accent (which to my non native speakers ears sounded very realistic) helps, but also the way he was introduced etc. Very good. McCoy next please.

Supposedly too much suspension of disbelief required for all the core characters always being among the survivors? Come on guys. We've done with this for about 750 episodes of classic trek. SNW has every right to expect the viewer to continue to do that. And I'd much rather have longer character arcs than game of thrones wannabe surprising deaths of core characters. That phase of fiction is over.

Wishes for s3:

- more Pike being a captain, less Pile being the ships chef please. Don't forget this show only exists because people liked his presence as classic trek captain so much. I know he's white and male, but sheesh, just let him have it and do his thing. It's fine. The show is progressive enough either way.

And yes, that includes *not* willfully writing him as "scared during shuttle landing" even though according to your own plot he used to be a test pilot. That's just silly. The female pilot can look just as cool without a captain shutting his pants next to her. Believe in your female characters. They don't need silly stunts like this.
- more klingons and politics. SNW is the first show in a looong time that does good klingons. And that little hint at DS9 style complex in-universe politics in E1 of this season, that went nowhere? That was promising. Please do some stuff like that. That's the kind of cross standalone episode continuity that works in the modern streaming era.
- please don't fall back into DSC reflexes and have *every* character have some past emotional trauma to deal with (and reveal it to other characters during a ticking clock phase of an episode at that... Why oh why is that objective mistake still happening). It's such a lazy way of characterization. You can do better. And this cast doesn't need this. Parts of the DSC cast maybe did. Not this one. It's a truly excellent cast all around.
- close the gorn plot line asap. We all know this can't really get to any depth due to budget concerns. Yes, CGI has gotten a lot better, but when a current day quality it character animation is required, the gorn will be a budget problem just as species 8472 were in voyager days. There's enough other species in the trek universe where a slightly silly forehead will do ;)
- a bit more exploration and scifi please.

Overall, i like SNW. A lot more than DSC. Keep going.

“Supposedly too much suspension of disbelief required for all the core characters always being among the survivors? Come on guys. We've done with this for about 750 episodes of classic trek. SNW has every right to expect the viewer to continue to do that. And I'd much rather have longer character arcs than game of thrones wannabe surprising deaths of core characters. That phase of fiction is over.”

I know right lol

Mosley, your wishes for SNW season 3 are right up my alley, especially about Pike. He's worrying me. But everything else you mentioned, too, should we start to parade outside the studios in Toronto or wherever? More Pike! Better Pike! Less trauma! More meaningful Gorns! Actual NEW worlds, not revisits to old ones!

I'm very happy with the direction all of the canon characters are taking , except for Pike. Paul Wesley has specifically said that his Kirk is not yet Shatner's Kirk, but he'll get there. And I *loved* the introduction of Scotty, who is perfectly cast.

I also can't stand the "only Scotty survived", "only Chapel survived" and "only main characters beamed up" crap. This is not asking for suspension of disbelief. This is asking for a free pass for lazy writing.

Other than that, good episode. I just hope that they don't find a way to save Marie, because otherwise Hammer's death will lose its dramatic weight and will become even more meaningless and even worse of a narrative decision.

By the way, I still don't get why they decided to kill off the only alien-looking crew. All being human-looking is really very disappointing and bland. Hope that can change somehow.

Hello everyone. I hope the hiatus is treating you well.

Variety has an excellent article on the future of Star Trek today. Written by someone who is clearly themselves a big Star Trek nerd, and who asks all the right questions.

It has a lot of surprises and teases. I won't post them here for people who don't want to know. But if you do choose to read it, expect info on: SNW season 3, the Section 31 TV movie (including a completely bonkers character reveal), post-Picard era plans, the new Starfleet Academy series, and the current state of plans to get the franchise back on the big screen.

Not much on the upcoming season of Discovery or on Lower Decks, and nothing on Prodigy. But I don't mind--that would have made for a far less interesting article, imo.

https://variety.com/2024/tv/features/star-trek-future-starfleet-academy-section-31-michelle-yeoh-1235952301/

*** stars.

As Jammer said, the episode is completely competent. Very straightforward and well executed.

I actually got a smile about the whole "midwestern town" scenario. I remember how TOS always made plots around what sets at the studio lot were available that week. That gave us episodes with gangsters, or with greek mythology. I almost wondered if it was the same thing, maybe there's a 50's movie being filmed next door to SNW?

Plotting was good overall. I liked the idea of using the rockets to send down the saucer of the Kyuga. There hasn't been too much crazy technobabble in SNW, which it should get credit for. Rockets deteriorating an orbit is an understandable solution. The biggest plot hole for me, wasn't the Kyuga crashing, or the 50's scenario, but that the federation was still in peacekeeping mode. Ok....we can grant the planet is on the other side of the line with a convenient non federation population of humans. But the Gorn destroyed the friggen Kyuga and is implanting them with embryos. What does it take for the Federation to send an armada out there to open up a can of whoop ass? Gotta wonder how they survived this long with that attitude. Ah but that's a Star Trek problem, not an SNW problem. Oh well, move along.

Scotty is well cast. As a part of the story here, it was nice to see him but completely unnecessary. Still like others here, I enjoyed the cameo and the actor. I will defend Paul Wesley. Shatner has a real subtle twinkle he brought to Kirk, and Wesley is very respectful of it. Shatner even gave Wesley his blessing when he met him. Speaking of Kirk, he's surprisingly absent from this cliffhanger. Everyone else is here - April, Scotty, Batel. I wouldn't have minded seeing him, it would have added yet another romantic jeopardy plot. Wait, maybe two is enough.

I've grown to like Batel more over the series. Sometimes it looks like she's mommy to to little boy Pike, but here Pike has put his grown up pants back on and they have a good chemistry again. It sucks she's got the the Alien embryo....I mean the Gorn egg inside of her. As for Pike, can we have more of this please? He's an adult again, not cooking and trying to be Star Trek's version of Gordon Ramsay. He also has some gravitas with Batel, and isn't willing to be told he did the wrong thing by coming after her. The plot didn't make Pike wrong about it. Good!

With a cliffhanger, Batel is likely the only one in real jeopardy here. We all know which characters survive to TOS. Soong could die, but its highly unlikely, she wasn't a focus of the story at all. So as a cliffhanger, it's serviceable, but not much to get excited about. I was more in glee at seeing the giant "TO BE CONTINUED" slam into my face. Man I love these retro touches.

The Gorn are fine as Alienesque villains, though like the Borg, they are quite simple. The Borg's original intensity and simplicity were unmatched when they were introduced. The Gorn are more like intelligent animals. Like the Borg though, I imagine the more they are developed, the less compelling they will be, and they are barely interesting at all right now. Seeing the adult Gorn in a giant space suit bordered on camp. Well I guess that's ok, since camp is where they originated from in TOS. They work best as creature feature villains in cramped corridors. I don't think they work well as quasi-super villains in spaces suits. I was thinking of The Lizard from Spider-Man during the battle on the Kyuga.

So a nice wrap up to a season with a bit more turbulence than season 1. I would average the seasons to about the same overall. Season 1 was consistent but didn't take huge risks, and hence was safely enjoyable, mostly riding on the the cast as it's big draw. Season 2 took some more risks, some paying off greatly (Subspace Rhapsody) but also had some more duds (I will admit I'm in the minority of disliking "Those Old Scientists" ...I'm also right). Mid season I was getting slightly turned off by some of the writing decisions for the characters, especially the wasting away of Pike as a strong lead, but they turned it around for the final stretch and brought me back into the fold.

My wishes for Season 3 will be mostly in the characterization dept. Keep Pike as a leader and don't diminish him for any DEI considerations. He's the lead, it's simple. Honestly, if the show wants to keep spreading the characterization around (which is a good thing), I think they need to expand the episode list to 15 or so a season. They have so much to pack into 10 episodes. In that list of ten, the writers have decided to give each character at least one episode to lead in, to bring in another TV show's characters, have cameo characters from TOS, a musical, and a cliffhanger. There's barely room for breathing, and Pike does get diminished as the lead with so much else to pack in. It's difficult for the show to breathe with so much going on. That's a good thing though! I would rather the show have too much going on, than be a padded fluffed up affair.

Una's character really has come off as wasted material. Much ado was made up in season 1 that she is an Elyrian. What's the big deal? I'm wondering if the show writers just decided to drop it, because they realized it was a big nothing burger for her character. Everytime I see her I think she is a human. Her characterization is that she is stuck up a bit. Not exactly mind blowing. I hope they can rescue her, otherwise she will become the Chakotay of SNW - a character with promise that became essentially bland and only there for plot purposes. I wasn't impressed with her church sermon episode - er court drama episode. As for Hegemony, she drives the plot and nothing more.

Ortegas as well is mildly likeable this season, but very undeveloped. That's ok for me, as I said, this show is trying to pack lots of material in 10 episodes, and she is lowest in the chain of command. I'd just like her to be more of a character than a one liner machine. The actress does a good job of delivering her lines without making her a Neelix or early insubordinate Tom Paris. Still, the writers could do a better job with her. Here, she gets to go on her first away mission, and learns essentially nothing. Wasted chance. Would have been a good punch to the gut if she got implanted with an Egg on her first away mission. Growing pains hurt.

I have lots more to say, but I'll wrap it up here. Maybe will post a season recap since I've drifted that way. But again, nice close to the season which at one point was close to falling off the edge into disappointing. I will finish with my episode star list:

The Broken Circle - ** 1/2

Ad Astra Per Asprera ** 1/2

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow *** 1/2

Among the Lotus Eaters ***

Charades ** 1/2

Lost in Translation ** 1/2

Those Old Scientists *

Under the Cloak of War *** 1/2

Subspace Rhapsody ****

Hegemony ***

I also have to add some small fantastic touches:

The Gorn music is absolutely a throwback to TOS scores. I love it.

Look at the gloves Spock wears...it's full of Trek insignias. Production values on this show are off the charts.