“Shuttle to Kenfori”

Apparently both Batel and we will never be free of the Gorn.
And I kept waiting for Michael Jackson to show up, with recitation from Vincent Price.

The first comment for this episode is so perfect, no one should write anything else (except this.)

Best Episode of the season so far!

Taut, Exciting, and definitely "Star Trek"!!

Review Andor.

@Jason R agree Andor is incredible

As for this episode... 2 stars if they were making 26 episodes a season. half star because it's one of ten.

Not good

Haven’t watched yet but a half star seems like massive hyperbole given the cast and general production quality of the show up to this point. Shades of Gray levels of unwatchable? Will the people who don’t like the show allow themselves to simply not watch it?

‘Don’t think about it – just hang on!’ (Ortegas)

Interesting episode, which returned to the SNW S1 tradition of spending the first third irritating the viewer, before improving suddenly to conclude on a captivating, fascinating and mostly impressive final third.

‘Shuttle to Kenfori’ is a deceptive episode, and I liked it that way, I’ll be candid. The episode gets the viewers’ eye-rolls in as early as possible, leading us to believe that the Gorn arc isn’t over (yawn), and sending the crew on a quest for a magical flower (sorry, rare blossom) that Spock and M’Benga claim will possibly, just possibly (yawn), keep Batel’s resurgent chestburster infection (yawn) under control. The crew are willing to disobey Starfleet orders and violate a Federation-Klingon treaty to do this (yawn), merely on the off-chance it might work. So off they all go, cheerled by an utterly insufferable Ortegas, who is even more arrogant than usual (the bridge crew’s fawning over how amazing Ortegas is only seems to encourage her obnoxiousness), ending up in the standard NuTrek debris field (yawn, although it looks very nice) and the very Trekkian abandoned Federation science facility.

(Oh, I thought – what if this facility has been taken over by Klingons and, obsessed by genetic testing after ENT ‘Affliction’, the Klingons have been producing Klingon-Gorn hybrids? Could this explain the DIS Klingons? Dare I dream of one retcon to retcon them all?)

And then it happens.

Zombies. My God.

I cannot emphasise how strongly I nearly gave up on the episode there and then. NuTrek is notoriously obsessed with swiping from other franchises, and there was no doubt that this was an attempt to swipe and ride from ‘The Last of Us’ (which I’ve not seen), ‘The Walking Dead’ (ditto) and ‘Game of Thrones’ (which I have). I felt like the episode was treating me like more of an imbecile than usual. And it got worse: as the zombie swarm descends, Pike commands M’Benga to reduce their two phasers – which can presumably be set to wide beam – to one by unnecessarily turning it into a severely limited effect grenade. Bizarre tactic – as proven when the Klingons ‘rescue’ them shortly after. A generic flight from the zombies hordes ensues, with the Klingons laughably reduced to the one character needed for the plot, and there is of course a handy forcefield generator on the roof! In space no one can hear a viewer scream.

Here, however, the episode – both on the roof and on the Enterprise – takes an intriguing turn. There is a palpable improvement. An interesting inverted blood feud, logical by Klingon standards, plays itself out on the planet, with M’Benga confessing to what he really did in ‘Under the Cloak of War’ – and defending it, for why would he not – as Bytha explains that M’Benga robbed her house of its only chance at redemption; and on the Enterprise, Ortegas’ insufferable arrogance crescendos to an act of subtly played insubordination. Thereafter, the Enterprise enters the atmosphere of Kenfori – the visual effects of its re-entry with shields crackling and the artificial gravity failing are stunning (even though artificial gravity plating shouldn’t work like that, it doesn’t matter for the scene). M’Benga (predictably) fights Bytha on the roof, but then another shift for the better occurs – to save her honour after M’Benga (as a special forces soldier, let us recall) logically beats her in hand to hand combat, Bytha sacrifices herself so that M'Benga and Pike can escape. The execution is rather NuTrek, but the ideas here are pure classic ethical Trek, and the writers and producers deserve great credit for it.

Back on the ship, we get a conclusion I never ever thought we would see in NuTrek. The fantastic Una – who I’ve complained has been sidelined in far too many episodes – not only gets a central role in this episode; she also gets to actually act like a commander. And by far the most surprising and impressive thing is that Ortegas’ insufferable arrogance and insubordination all through this episode actually, unbelievably, lead to consequences for Ortegas. Again, the writers and producers deceive us to tell us a good story: earlier on in the episode the crew consistently indulge Ortegas’ misconduct, to the point that it feels archetypally saccharine and NuTrek. But no – here and no further. The commanding disappointment from Una as she dresses down Ortegas is mesmerising to watch. Romijn is simply outstanding. This is really excellent stuff. Consequences! In NuTrek! How things have changed.

This episode isn’t perfect – the zombies should have been aliens – but there was more than enough here to recommend it. The strategy of having a weak opening third to lull the audience into not expecting a strong conclusion is odd, but it works, maybe because of how jaded we as viewers are. Tying this episode to ‘Under the Cloak of War’ was simply genius. ‘Shuttle to Kenfori’ shows that SNW can deliver when it really wants to.

This was certainly, uh, one of the Star Trek episodes of all time. Truly mediocre.

The production quality was outstanding as usual. Same goes for the acting. And after the costume department had their fun last week, this week it was the hair department's turn. (someone on reddit pointed out that all the ladies on the bridge had new hairstyles this week because it made it easier to film the low gravity scenes) There's a bit of good stuff hidden in here somewhere, most notably the Pike/Batel situation and how Number One dealt with Ortegas. (in the most TNG way possible: by dressing her down, dismissing her, and then stopping her to give some personal advice)

But the rest didn't really hold up to SNW's usual standards. The pacing of the episode felt weird right from the beginning. The usual chemistry between the characters felt kinda off. (I can't put my finger on it but everything felt more stiff than usual) The zombies were totally unnecessary. The Klingons looked weird. (I'd even take the DISCO Klingons over this design) And how M'Bengas murder is just swept under the rug really irked me. Such a wasted opportunity.

Klingons, Zombies, and feelings oh my. Some nice, if unoriginal TOS/TNG style moments, but too much Discovery style "feelings" moments. In the watchable but mediocre range.

I have really mixed feelings with this outing. Like a lot of SNW, it merges A-tier character work with C-tier plotting, which I guess evens out to a solid B?

The opening was breakneck-paced exposition and plot railroading. Batel has a new ticking timebomb, there's a maguffin they need, now go! I guess I kind of appreciate they wasted no time, but TBH the idea that the flagship of Starfleet can go on a rogue mission to save Captain Girlfriend's life was just bowled through like it was obvious, where in earlier shows there would be at least a bit of mini-arc here wrestling over the ethics of just going rogue.

Turning to the planet-side adventures of M'Benga and Pike, I felt like the two sides of the story didn't integrate well here at all. M'Benga facing down the daughter of Dak'Rah - seeing the consequences of his actions - this stuff was highly compelling. But the zombies were just a gimmick to fill out time and complicate the mission. Literally anything could have been used here in their place, and the story would work just the same. The zombies had nothing to speak of to do with the plot, unless you consider the tortured connection to the cure for Batel (Why did they just have Batel read out the exposition? This would have been a great place to have video logs from the scientists). In the end, I was just left thinking about how much better ENT did this with Impulse.

Turning to the B-plot back onboard the ship, this is really an episode for Una and Ortegas. Here, I feel like the episode hit it out of the park. Ortegas is cracking under PTSD in a different manner than La'an did, and making mistakes. While her insubordination didn't get anyone killed, it was useless towards actually saving Pike and M'Benga (who had just saved themselves) and Una calls her out on it and takes her off duty. It's so rare to see either the chain of command respected or characters suffer the consequences of poor choices, so I'm interested to see where this is going. And glad something is finally being done with Ortegas.

I'm a bit less glad at the discussion at the end between Pike and M'Benga, where he basically says "No worries you killed a man in cold blood, you're my bruh, I've still got your back." At the end of Under the Cloak of War, Pike was clearly upset with M'Benga, and some tension - some consequence - should have been shown here. Particularly given we know M'Benga has to be demoted for some reason, and this seems as good a reason as ever. Maybe we're waiting for a third shoe to drop now?

Rounding back a second to the Pike/Batel stuff, while the whole thing of her becoming a human-Gorn hybrid is bonkers, it's firmly within the norm of Star Trek bonkers shit. I liked thematically that M'Benga was hiding the truth from Pike here, just as he was about Dak'Rah - which is why Pike not connecting the two was so frustrating. Seeing Pike act so irrationally around Batel seems a tiny bit OOC, but they directly lampshade it, so I guess it's fine? Interested to see where this is going.

Overall, better than Episode 1, but I'm not sure if I'd say it's better than Episode 2. It's a problem when you make a "zombie episode" where the zombies are the least interesting part of the whole thing.

@UESPA_Sputnik:
'And how M'Bengas murder is just swept under the rug really irked me. Such a wasted opportunity.'

Agreed. The 'Lex Pike' approach ('this whole mission is off the books so we'll pretend you never told me') is just too convenient to be plausible. I also didn't care much for the soap opera-like final scene between Pike and Batel.

Thanks for explaining why Number One's hairstyle looks so conspicuously odd in this episode too.

Ack, should have said "why did they just have M'Benga read out the exposition?"

Really wish this site had an edit function.

Why is NuTrek so obsessed with debris fields? Please let us fly in clean, dark space once in a while.

I'm slowly lowering my opinion of SNW. But it's still the best NuTrek by far.

Finally watched. Easily the best episode of the three so far, and has a lot of cool moments tying into one of the best Trek episodes since DS9 in Under the Cloak of War. It’s nowhere near as good as that one, but I think all the development of that narrative surprisingly worked. Also crazy how SNW just gives its biggest haters everything they want and they still complain. “Ortegas quipping is insubordinate” has been the number one complaint about this show from pretty much all of the show’s detractors, and they just nailed it right on the head. I’m very excited to see what they do with her character now that she’s being given ACTUAL substance.

3 stars. Detract half for Una’s terrible hair and the zombies being the least interesting part of a zombie episode.

@Pike's Hair
I'm NOT being hyperbolic. In my post, I mentioned Andor. This episode isntruly horrible. It's run of the mill, but not even fun, or probing at all. It's so stock, and completely lacking in edge. Like I said, if it had been a 26 episode season, it would have been forgiveable. Even the 'production values" in this episode felt little better than TNG.

In contrast to to the money that we pay for entertainment, when they can produce a show as well written, as well performed as ANDOR, than "Shuttle to Krapfest" really stands out for not being anything at all. How was that episode? oh they fight zombies. The doctor admits he "assassinated" a klingon. No he killed on self defence but they want to create false drama, so now he "assassinated" the klingon, and that's the best drama they could get. And "I fly the Ship" girllllll gets reprimanded

So we now have an Ops officer who does scans and is called "Lieutenant Scanell"? Oy. That's right up there with Otto Octavius.

Pelia can just blow off top level meetings and no one bats an eye? Nothing against Scotty, he's a talented up and comer but Geordi never sent Wesley to sit in for him either. She wanted to chief engineer, then do the job... All of it.

The big plan to save Batell is to pull a Tuvix? Use a miracle plant to fuse two genomes together? Where's Kathryn Janeway with the medical phaser when you need her.

I know space is big, but the notion that the Enterprise can drift by the Klingon warship undetected is just ludicrous. Don't they have windows?

The zombie/fungus plotline felt derivative and never managed to impress. It's an away mission with Pike, we know he is destined to survive. As is M'Benga... and anyone else who showed up in TOS, come to think of it.

@Pike's Hair I meant to add that, in mentioning Andor, maybe we should expect the streaming shows that we pay for to at least approach that level of production, of writing, and performing. This episode feels like a low end TNG episode, and not even in a deliberate, charming way like the typical Orville outing .

But Andor changed my thoughts, that we should not simple "accept" those kinds of middling episodes" Whenever Andor has an episode without anything big happening, it's building until they are ready.

Well, the idea of zombies was a pretty bad one, but the interplay between Bonga and the Klingon female, or even more between Una and Ortegas, was really good.
The problem with the show is that it is going around and around the same themes: the gorn, the consequences of the war with Klingons. What about an adventure to a really strange new world?

@karatasiospa i might agree, but the Klingon female was such a stock character, played by a guest actor that was also just.. not good. Again, back in the 90's I'd be ok. But TV, with shows like this using such a limited number of episodes and are able to do almost anything with the millions of dollars dumped at their feet, this episode feels like we've gone backwards, with less interesting characters to boot

I’ve always thought that in the TOS episode The Menagerie, Spock would never in a million years hijack a ship and break all sorts of Federation laws to get Pike to the illusion planet. But now I see why he did… Of course he loved Pike, but more than that… By the time he gets to Kirk’s ship, he has seen captains throw regulations and laws out the window for personal missions half a dozen times. So why wouldn’t he do the same? It’s not one of my favorite things about Star Trek.
And on a bit of a lookist note, Pike can do so much better than Batel, as in Una, who is a galaxy-level babe.

I feel unsure about what to think. It was not a bad episode, still something felt strange, something was missing.

Perhaps all the interpersonal matters takes up to much time. At least its not like in DISCO.

I liked Bytha / Christine Horn, impressed by how she managed to catch the stereotype of a klingon warrior.

The Zombie stuff was >*shrug*< but having seen the season trailers, I knew that's what it would be, despite hoping the issue was sentient plants defending the planet. Where's the doctor's super soldier serum when you really need it?

Klingon Klaptrap (non-Discovery version) was entirely on-brand: I had to kill my father to regain my honor but then you killed him instead so now I must kill you instead. Wut?

As noted by others, the scenes on the Enterprise with Number One really in command for the first time we've seen, shined. The bridge crew displayed professionalism unusual for modern Trek, other than Ortagas, who was (also unusually) appropriately disciplined. Really good character work, Ortegas has a clever way to sabotage the approved plan and implement hers without being caught, but not quite clever enough to get by Number One. Both ready room scenes were Old Skool Trek writing.

Batel Gorn Hybrid theory: She gives rise to the real (Arena-style) humanoid Gorn (with better makeup and costuming, but not too much). The fake SNW Gorn remain asleep forever. I posited a theory previously in the forum that the SNW Gorn would turn out not to be the "real Gorn"; maybe I was right?

"Both ready room scenes were Old Skool Trek writing." Hardly
The writers here don't even write sci fi. They write angst

I think it’s a little unfair to compare Andor to anything on streaming from a major franchise. Andor imo is the best sci fi show since DS9. Andor also happens to be the best thing Star Wars has ever put out, with by far the most to say. It’s going to be all downhill from there for that franchise. I actual believe it was a genuine accident that it was even that good considering the slop that’s been churned out since RotJ. The Gorman Massacre in particular is the peak of the entire SW franchise imo. Andor also got more episodes a season than SNW. There are also people who loathed Andor, because it’s also thoroughly UNStar Wars to them. Can you blame them? It doesn’t share much in common with anything under the SW banner before it.

SNW is not thoroughly UNTrek, and after 16 straight years of UNTrek slop I will always appreciate it for that. Do I think the show could offer more originality and say more? Yes 100%. I wish we had more episodes like the few really really good ones we know it’s capable of. If by the end of the season we don’t have any real standouts, I’ll be worried. I’m not panicking 3 episodes in. Next week has been cited in many reviews of the season as the standout of the first half. We’ll see then I guess.

@Pike's Hair
I'm starting to jive with you a bit.. a little. I get it, I kind of agree. Yet "I think it’s a little unfair to compare Andor to anything on streaming from a major franchise. " Yet both ST and SW are major franchises, and the two most compared franchises for the last two generations. Trek in particular used to be written by people like Ellison and Sturgeon, and was often the first thing normies thought of when it came to real science fiction. Now it hardly qualifies as sci fi, and real substance has been replaced by kitchiness. And, yes, it might be unfair to compare to Andor, maybe not.. the difference between ten episodes a season and 12 is not that much. And all it took for Andor to really hit it out of the park was that gritty vision that Gilroy put behind it, a way to elaborate on themes he wanted (or, more like, HAD) to tell. Where is that in SNW? Other than the comfort of watching Star Trek, where is that passion, that edge, that NEED to tell a story so much that fans would pay a bit more money for the premium experience of watching it.

Yes the Ghorman Massacre was the central point of the series, but there are those who argue that "Make it Stop" a Quiet episode that deviates from the norm a bit, to the strongest sci fi episode of Andor or any series. It stays with you, and as much as it dares to do things Star Wars has never done, somehow it gives more resonance to the lore of Star Wars.

This might sound crude, but I wish Trek writers would grow some b$lls and tell a REAL story, instead of tapdancing along the fringes of the lore

I find myself mostly in agreement with Bok R'Mor above, with a couple of exceptions. I don't think the episode is *deliberately* written the way he describes; just that the script is unable to find a way to find those first 15 minutes of set-up novel or exciting. I also rolled my eyes at the zombies and would have preferred a more grounded, Star Trekky kind of threat.

Otherwise, this episode ticked a bunch of boxes for me:

* Una demonstrating her no-nonsense command style
* Ortegas finally crossing the line
* M'Benga forced to admit the truth of his actions

Aside from the labored set-up, the thing that irked me most in the script was once again Captain Pike. I don't like the direction the writers have taken him in. Back in "Under The Cloak Of War", I thought that he knew M'Benga had murdered the Klingon ambassador, and was choosing to look the other way in part due to his own guilt at not fighting in the war. But now it turns out that, actually, he took M'Benga's word at face value despite all the evidence to the contrary, and in my eyes it makes him look weak and naive.

To add insult to injury, he tells M'Benga at the end that he's fine with it! This is not Captain Boy Scout here, who would've been terribly angered and disappointed, both by being lied to *and* by his CMO committing murder under his nose on his ship. This is just somebody who's not willing to hold his subordinate to a higher standard, personal reasons be damned. (See: Sisko losing his shit at Worf and Dax in "Sons Of Mogh", Picard dressing down Wesley in "The First Duty", Janeway vs Ransom in "Equinox"...)

In an episode where we see Una doing exactly what we would expect a CO to do with an act of naked insubordination, Pike's reactions stand out even further. Nope, I don't like it one bit.

A three star effort overall, I think.

A good episode overall with enough stuff going on other than just a rescue from zombies, though the character development remains weak and superficial. The actress playing Ortegas is just not good enough as it has become hard to take her seriously even when she's not just saying "I fly the ship". But it was appropriate to see Una take command and later read the riot act to Ortegas, though the navigator's insubordination was not shown to be tied to her Gorn PTSD.

The whole zombie stuff was a major letdown, although ENT also did it in "Impulse" but this episode has more going for it than that one did.

I can't make out half of what M'Benga says but he has his own ethical code and so does Pike, risking war with the Klingons again by violating a treaty to get a plant to help his girlfriend -- so is each person's taking matters into their own hands on whatever scale they control going to be the drivers for various sub-plots/episodes? Gotta do better than that SNW.

So what again are the Klingon rules for an honorable death? The Klingon chick who fought M'Benga was about to get killed by him but he forfeited, but that puts her in a worse position than she was before so she sacrifices herself to the zombies... But she and Pike/M'Benga will know that her death wasn't honorable, but perhaps other Klingons might think it was honorable?

I did like how the episode used all its main cast pretty well here, though Carol Kane was mysteriously absent (which is a good thing for me).

As for Pike / Batel -- she doesn't want him to know of her medical decision. Hope she turns into a Gorn zombie hybrid and has to be put down before she devours everyone on Pike's ship. At least there is a consequence to her having been infected by the Gorn and everything's not hunky-dory. I don't buy Batel confiding in M'Benga/Spock on her medical treatment but totally leaving Pike in the dark -- like who is more important to her? That's just a made-for-TV conceit.

3 stars for "Shuttle to Kenfori" -- clearly the best of the 3 S3 SNW episodes so far, and I think it's better to have consequences arising from "Under the Cloak of War", building on what SNW itself established instead of always leaning on TOS. Still wish Ortegas had been killed as I'm finding her equally annoying as the writers pivot with her character and the insubordination route. Pike/Batel treat each other very strangely.

@Rahul sorry "Impulse" is leagues better than this, just atmosphere and lighting alone..

Can someone tell me was the idea of a moss hybrid with another plant an oriognal idea for zombies progon and in general.as sci fi or has this been sone before.

And whats so.great about Andor? It had no new aliens or strange new worlds or awe and wonder and exploration and I found it very.boring.

Pike and Patel have the chemistry of oil and water. And I hate how this year‘s Pike is all weepy and prayerful. This show promised to be great early in the first season and periodically throughout the first two, but maybe the long wait or whatever it might be… It’s just been very disappointing so far. I mean seriously: Alien-style lizard Gorn and … zombies?

Also, Jammer, not to be pedantic but the neutral zone was between Fed and Romulan space, at least by TOS.

A competent episode that, with its many strands, does nothing exceptionally well: it's not a thrilling zombie romp, or a philosophical exploration of physiological change, or a compelling story of retribution. The pieces to all are there, but the episode commits to none. A more focused story might have been best.

@leif Andor: what is good about it
Writing
Writing
Production design
Writing
Performances
Writing
Themes
Writing

How much longer are they going to milk the Gorn storyline? At this point, it's less of an arc and more of a parasitic infestation. Fitting, I suppose, given how literally that metaphor plays out in this episode. The Gorn taint now irrevocably stains the show. We've gone from suspenseful mystery to exhausted familiarity, and now we're being dragged through every horror trope in the book. First "Aliens", now zombies. What's next? Were-Gorn?

This week's twist on "Fun with DNA" telegraphed itself early. The previous episode dangled the prospect of Ortegas becoming the victim of Gorn DNA, only to swerve... and surprise! It's Batel's turn again! And now her Gorn infection has reached possession-level absurdity: their embryonic tissue is apparently potent enough to momentarily take control of Spock. Why even bother with body horror when you're already toeing into demonic territory? It's all just a bunch of muddled nonsense.

Speaking of Ortegas: this may have been her most Ortegas-ish episode yet. Her sarcastic "thanks" to Una gets treated as an act of insubordination, and La'an and Una both criticize her...but honestly? That kind of snark is everywhere on this show. It's practically the default mode of communication for the bridge crew. Why are we only now pretending it's a disciplinary issue? The show's tone has trained us to read sarcasm as normal Starfleet banter. Either SNW suddenly remembered it's set in a quasi-military hierarchy, or it's trying to have it both ways and failing.

Then there's the shuttle situation. Didn't we see it get blown up? What exactly did they plan to escape on? The plot seems to quietly sidestep this logistical detail, which is emblematic of a broader problem: stakes are established, then quietly walked back or ignored. M'Benga, for instance, is revealed to have assassinated that Federation ambassador after all, but Pike shrugs it off, because...friendship? So there's no accountability, no fallout, no consequence. The mission was unsanctioned anyway, so I guess rules don't matter if you're tight with the captain.

And yet, for all this moral elasticity, Ortegas is the one being sent to learn about "the chain of command"? The irony borders on parody. Week after week, Pike and his inner circle are essentially running an incestuous, conflict-of-interest-fueled covert operation aboard the Enterprise, rewriting policy on the fly, and somehow it's the pilot's sarcasm that tips the scale?

Oh, and let's not forget: they were detected by the Klingons. On the planet and in orbit. So not only did they break rule #1 to save Pike's girlfriend, they potentially provoked an interstellar incident while doing it. One of their primary objectives, avoid detection, FAILED. But the show treats this like a minor hiccup in an otherwise touching rescue mission.

At this point, watching Strange New Worlds feels less like experiencing a thoughtful sci-fi series and more like anticipating a heist to go wrong. I find myself rooting less for the heroes and more for the consequences to finally catch up with them. It's not that the characters are bad people but the writing keeps letting them off the hook for increasingly serious breaches of ethics, duty, and logic. I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

@Bryan agreed
And the irony is that the writers are still treating these character like heroes, like they are somehow right. Kind of like how the writers of Star Trek Insurrection didn't realize that Dougherty and Ruafo had a point

@MercerCreate

It might have SEEMED like Dougherty and Ruafo had a point, at least by certain utilitarian metrics, until it became clear that Ruafo's true motivation was personal vengeance, not the greater good. At that point even Dougherty had a "what have we done?" moment.

And that’s the irony: Dougherty, for all his moral compromises, still had enough of a conscience to reconsider when he realized he was complicit in something rotten. Pike and M’Benga, on the other hand, only grow more self-assured as each conflict of interest conveniently obscures and covers for the last.

@Bryan

You are exactly right. They are still villains and it doesn't take long for the script to tell us that Ruafo wants to satisfy that need for vengeance, or that Ruafo realizes he's been playing the wrong side.

But the point I'm making still stands.. they had a point. They were starting from something undeniable... why not move a few hundred people.. people whom the PD no longer even applied to.. to save BILLIONS. Why couldn't the script grow some b$lls and realize that these points were right and our heroes were not. When film critic Roger Ebert saw the film, he had discussions with others about exactly that. His review brings up tons of philosophical questions that arise in that film before the script decides to take the easy road out and make the villains just lame villains..

Good review, Jammer.

@Jammer:
‘The zombie sequences are the episode's most expensively and elaborately staged moments (lots of extras, makeup, and stunts), and yet they're also the most unnecessary to the story itself.’

Indeed. The priorities here are quite puzzling. It’s as if the production staff were told to shoehorn zombies into this season by the powers that be because of the popularity of ‘The Last of Us’ and ‘The Walking Dead’.

@Karl Zimmerman:
‘But the zombies were just a gimmick to fill out time and complicate the mission. Literally anything could have been used here in their place, and the story would work just the same. The zombies had nothing to speak of to do with the plot’

Agreed. It’s very strange plotting, too, because the zombie attack only takes place for a) some mindless peril and action; and b) to get Pike, M’Benga and Bytha onto the roof for their confrontation; and c) kill off Bytha. It’s as if the writers couldn’t sew their plot requirements together, so they asked ChatGPT to write a way out for them.

(For example, @Cynic’s proposal – sentient plants defending the planet – is far less hackneyed than zombies.)

@Norvo:
‘It's an away mission with Pike, we know he is destined to survive. As is M'Benga... and anyone else who showed up in TOS, come to think of it.’
This is a serious problem with SNW generally. When M’Benga was fighting Bytha, I suddenly remembered that since M’Benga shows up in TOS, the outcome couldn’t ever be in doubt. In fact, the entire M’Benga-Dak’Rah conflict – as compelling as it is – is undermined by it being about M’Benga, who survives and has a normal role in TOS. If the conflict had involved, say, La’an (who doesn’t appear in TOS), the stakes would be much higher. This is just poor planning from the writers and producers. Then again, in SNW, continuity is optional, so I doubt they care.

@Tim C:
‘I don't think the episode is *deliberately* written the way he describes; just that the script is unable to find a way to find those first 15 minutes of set-up novel or exciting.’

Re-reading my initial post I see I may have given the incorrect impression that I thought the writers and producers had been big and clever (I was still on a ‘high’ off the Una-Ortegas scene, I’ll admit). I was just relieved that they’d given us two scenes of real substance in a mess of ideas. I doubt it was intentional on their part; just a happy confluence of competence and discipline in an otherwise incompetent and undisciplined episode.

‘In an episode where we see Una doing exactly what we would expect a CO to do with an act of naked insubordination, Pike's reactions stand out even further. Nope, I don't like it one bit.’

Agreed. There’s a very odd moral of ‘Do whatever you want, all the time’ to the Pike-M’Benga storyline, and it also again undermines Pike’s integrity – at the same time that the Una-Ortegas plot is very clearly more ‘Do whatever you want, but only some of the time’.

@Rahul:
‘Still wish Ortegas had been killed as I'm finding her equally annoying as the writers pivot with her character and the insubordination route.’

The paradox here is that if Ortegas had been killed off prior to this episode, as I also wished she had been last week, we would never have got that amazing Una-Ortegas scene. Ortegas has been a profoundly unlikeable character for a long, long time now: ‘Four hours? Yeah, that won’t work for me.’ (ugh, the worst line in this season; screams 21st century) – this isn’t even Ortegas with PTSD; this would have been her genuine normal behaviour in a meeting of senior officers previously as well.

@Bryan:
‘Speaking of Ortegas: this may have been her most Ortegas-ish episode yet. Her sarcastic "thanks" to Una gets treated as an act of insubordination, and La'an and Una both criticize her...but honestly? That kind of snark is everywhere on this show. It's practically the default mode of communication for the bridge crew. Why are we only now pretending it's a disciplinary issue? The show's tone has trained us to read sarcasm as normal Starfleet banter. Either SNW suddenly remembered it's set in a quasi-military hierarchy, or it's trying to have it both ways and failing.’

Strong agree. Part of the reason the Una-Ortegas scene works so well is that it snaps SNW back to a modicum of what one would expect life on a Federation starship to be, and that we hitherto haven’t seen on this show. The way Ortegas swaggers in and says, ‘What’s up? This is all a bit official, isn’t it?’ just before she gets her arse handed to her by Una is indicative of the painfully informal, snark-and-slang-do-whatever-you-want norms and values in SNW. Even Pike defers to his subordinates rather than command them. It’s infuriating and contemptible in equal measure.

Finally, the Pike-Batel relationship is completely and utterly uninteresting and I don’t buy them as a convincing couple either, as a few posters have hinted at. Gives Pike an excuse to be pictured in his kitchen, though.

Bah!

Okay, so this show has spent time ripping off the Alien franchise, and now they are getting in on zombie fare. (And just for good measure, the "drift away with the trash" maneuver comes straight from The Empire Strikes Back. This level of unoriginality is not what I'm looking for in a Star Trek show. If it doesn't shape up soon, I may have to bail on this show like I did with Discovery and Picard.

At least the friction between Ortegas and Una, and the ship's atmospheric interaction (including Scotty being amusingly stuck with his feet in the air) were more interesting, but overall we end up with a two star episode. Roughly on par with the worst episode of S2 (2.9, "Space Rhapsody"), and the second-worst of S1 ("All Those Who Wander"), but still mercifully not as godawful as 1.8, "The Elysian Kingdom", which is not only the worst episode of the series but probably the crappiest episode of TV I've watched all the way through in the 21st century.

@MercerCreate

They have told some real stories. But at most we only get two or three of them a season which is a bummer.

A Quality of Mercy
Ad Astra Per Aspera
Under the Cloak of War
Memento Mori

^probably the genuine standouts from the show, particularly from a writing perspective.

Anyone else feel like so far this season they’ve tried to cram too many different threads into each episode? The three episodes that are out right now seem very much less focused than what the show has been in the past.

@Pike's Hair:
'Anyone else feel like so far this season they’ve tried to cram too many different threads into each episode?'

Yes. And the most obvious explanation is that they didn't have as many episodes as they wanted. But that just means the writers and producers need to be much stricter in what they prioritise. Why waste finite resources and running time on the zombies in this episode, for example?

I'm currently going thru Andor S2 and would say one of the biggest issues I have thus far is how rapidly it switches between subplots to the point where it is really jarring. There are even some instances of poor directorial choices -- or errors -- like having dialog from one subplot starting while another subplot is still on screen, and same for the background music (Mothma's party music plays while Andor rescues Bix/Wilmon from the agricultural planet after one of their own was killed). So what I'd say about this SNW episode is that while it covered a lot of subplots, I too felt that it was not done in a jarring manner which is a kudos for how it was directed. I never felt that this episode tried to do too much.

@MercerCreate, "Impulse" was a paper-thin episode plot-wise whereas this episode has more depth going for it. While the zombies here are the weakest part of the episode, I would agree that the Vulcan zombies were much more effective and Trekkian (which they should be) on the ENT episode. Still, the zombie stuff went on for too long in that ENT episode -- but I guess that's all that episode was about. There's no question in my mind that this is a better outing, even with its flaws, than "Impulse".

Disco is slowly (?) assimilating SNW... and it is not only the lens flares.

Everyone behaves like if Enterprise is their fun ride ship where they are like good old friends who enjoy to do things that are not allowed by the Federation.

A doctor who endangers the ship by keeping his daughter in a buffer?
No problemo.

The same doctor murdered a person. Ok, no biggies, "he is just a man", his captain said. Since when being a man makes it ok to murder people?

A captain, who put himself, a fellow officer and his crew in peril so he can save his girlfriend. We are talking about the definition of a captain here. "Girlfriend first!".

How Spok once said? "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one".
I guess SNW hasn't reached this level of wisdom yet. Or maybe Spok said these words remembering Pike.

Poor Ortegas, the only one getting punished for disobeying orders, and punished by who? by the same officer who had no issues with the doctor and his daughter risking the ship and the crew.

And this now is considered a good episode? Really?
And I did not even mention the ..... zombies...

p.s.
Well, I found Andor boring and full of cliches..

@SlackerInc-

At least Elysian Kingdon wrapped up the "daughter in the transporter buffer" thread, and the writers chose to actually end that thread and never bring it up again (at least, not yet). I thought it was goofy, and M'Benga's bemused affect rather than any sense of alarm was a strange choice.

This series needs to get past the Gorn. The only multi-season enemy that was omnipresent was the Dominion, and arguably Cardassia by extension. But those species were really done well, showing intelligent alien societies with their own motivations. The villains were evil, but not unthinking automatons that can be controlled via animalistic instinctual responses to things like solar flares.

It makes me wonder... who exactly are the Gorn scientists that have the self-discipline to study and come up with this tech? They act more like bands of chimpanzees that found some machine guns. They are good for a "horror" episode or two, or maybe even season, but going on three full seasons... C'mon.

Glad to see some comeuppance for Ortegas, and hopefully this is just the beginning and not a one-off, or used solely to cheaply demonstrate her isolation/alienation, while letting things like "stealing a starship on a personal errand" slide without further comment.

There is plenty of canon for "Let's take the ship without explicit starfleet orders to go and do task XYZ," including when Admiral Kirk outright steals a decommissioned Enterprise to go rescue Spock for purely personal reasons in Star Trek III.

But let's not forget that Admiral Kirk got busted down to Captain for that stunt, even though he actually saved the Earth upon his return in Star Trek IV. Writers, take note.

I hate Pike's stupid fucking haircut. Dude's 50 years old and looks ridiculous.

Two stars. I agree with @AMA that this an unfocused script with a lot of concepts that get “ho-hum” execution. The zombies were an unnecessary distraction from what might have been a tightly focused Klingon encounter story with sharper and more developed characterizations. Instead we get another tedious soap opera that substitutes special effects for ideas. Not sure what Jammer means by the episode “taking risks,” as I see only a lot cliched and safe artistic choices in this one. Nice to see a bit of focus on Number One, but most of the shipboard stuff felt more like routine filler than the tense cat and mouse game with Klingon ships that it might have been. I like M’Benga but there’s just way too much hokiness throughout the show. Give me “Arena” any day and please cancel SNW.

Bah, Zombies. I hate Zombies.
They're really milking this Gorn thing. The Gorn just need to be gone. Kill te girl already. Now we get Maricutus of Gorn.
Miss high and mighty Una. As if she didn't break rules to force Starfleet superiors to do things her way.

I feel like recently they have been using Number one very well.

I thought this episode was decent, if a bit crampted with ideas. I called the plant zombies the moment they said there was no animal life--it felt too close to The Last of Us for me, but at least it wasn't the focus of the episode.

I liked the Ortegas/Una plot and appreciated the M'Benga confession, but I have zero patience for Klingon honor-style plots.

But I have a *lot* of questions about the "chimera blossom." Doesn't Batel have a *lot* of Gorn offspring in her? It sounds like they're not just creating a human-Gorn hybrid, but actually a half-a-dozen-Gorn-and-a-human hybrid, which sounds... complicated.

Kudos to many commenters here … because they agree with me! Heh, heh. This show has lost its way, kind of suddenly.
‘Maricutus of Gorn.’
Pike’s hair.
Zombies. Zom. Bies.
This show makes me miss Enterprise. That saddens me.

Ok, ok, ok, ok, ok... let's not bring up Andor with every new episode please. Ok?

Ok.

Unless you're saying how awesome Andor is.

"Ok, ok, ok, ok, ok... let's not bring up Andor with every new episode please. Ok?

Ok.

Unless you're saying how awesome Andor is."

Well since you mentioned it.

@Bok Mor
So who cares about the Klingons? Don't we really care about them if they are like ourselves in some way? Her actions seemed like a terrible plot contrivance. She saves Pike and M'benga, enemies of the Klingon empire, and thinks it will get her into stovacore? Why didn't she just kill them? Wouldn't have that have worked better?

If this had been the whole episode maybe they could have explained what she was doing and her motivation and why she was doing it. We could feel sympathy for her. Maybe the Federation and the Klingons could fight together against the zombies. Then she could give sympathy and sacrifice for them. That would be the TNG version I would like.

Terrible episode. I'm not watching Star Trek for its gore and (rather unimaginative) zombies. The weak excuse for a plot ("magical all-saving flower that only grows in one place" and "angry Klingon has honor issues") also didn't help the story.

Together with the two previous lackluster episodes --- a scifi horror/action climax to a forgettable two-year old story, and a reset-button "what if" dream caused by a spoiled magic child --- this show is quickly approaching Discovery quality, unfortunately. Its only saving grace are the production values and character moment (Una/Ortegas, Pike/Batel, Spock/Christine), but that won't be enough if the stories don't keep up.

Jammer's right... They certainly put a lot of ingredients into the stew this week.

The only redeeming part about the "zombies" was that they provided an end M'Benga's story. For those that say he finally admitted it... he only didn't admit it to Pike before to protect Pike, not to save himself. I've always thought he would have no problem serving justice WRT to Ambassador Dak'Rah. I was glad that M'Benga didn't happen to have a syringe of that super cerium to fight off the zombies this week.

For those who say snarkiness has always been on the bridge in New Trek, you would be correct, but Ortegas is taking it to another level here... this was insubordination.

Aside from her incomprehensibly horrible hair, this was Una's finest moment in SNW. I mean really, who gets paid for this? They took a beautiful woman and made her look like a member of The Monkeys. Good lord. Nice to see her act like a number one for a change.

Bytha... what to think... she was pretty good cookie-cutter Klingon... but why a "she"? ... oh yes, this is nu-trek... I have never remembered a Klingon fighting with a whip, though... this I think is a first. I thought whips were a Ferengi thing. I would count this as an honorable death. It was nice for M'Benga to keep the monster inside.

I'll go with Jammer and give this 3 stars.

I do think Enterprise did better with the zombies though.

If Gorn DNA is a thing with Captain Batel, is it going to an issue with Orgatas too?

So, we will have a muppets episode!

“We think of you all the time when we are in the writers room and we always talk about what would the fans want and love ” exec producer Akiva Goldsman told supporters at Comic Con.

So the fans wanted a muppets episode? I didn't know that.
Seems like fun. Hopefully. They got Pike's hair right.

@Yanks

Though not a good reason, I heard that the reason her hair, and the other women's hair looks different this episode is to make the low gravity scenes easier to film


Andor rocks. That's how you make a prequel. "Make it Stop" might be the best episode of anything

I agree it’s the best of the season thus far. 3/4 stars feels about right. Maybe 3.5 if I’m treating these ratings as measuring the show against itself, not every other Trek in existence.

It seems the crew will be dealing with repercussions of the Gorn almost-war for a while yet with Ortegas’ PTSD, Batel’s DNA, and now Spock’s psychic infestation (and whatever La’an is still dealing with). I actually think this is the right move. It makes the Gorn plot line feel like less of a lark while adding layers of complexity to the species which feel both insidious and downright alien.

The dramatic moments reminded me more of the darker episodes of DS9 than Discovery. Una disciplining Ortegas was particularly well done and represents the kind of professionalism I’d like to see more of in nu-Trek.

@theBgt:
'“We think of you all the time when we are in the writers room and we always talk about what would the fans want and love ” exec producer Akiva Goldsman told supporters at Comic Con.'

We want and love good Trek, and they promise us muppets instead – and insist it's 'for the fans'. The gaslighting is off the scale.

The Starfleet Academy trailer was also predictable NuTrek YA rubbish as well. Looks like DIS 2.0. Feelings, lens flares and shipping conquer everything.

Where we're headed we don't need continuity or quality.

So here I am, again, maybe just to annoy certain people here, or to drive a point home, but I'm going to bring up Andor again.. on a comments thread for a Trek episode that tries and fails to bring various aspects of its various loose plotlines together in a show with such a limited number of episodes that also wants to rush along to it's "special gimmick" episodes that wedding bells and costumed space adventure hours and jokey syrums that turn characters into Vulcans that you have to force yourself to be reminded that this is intended to be a prequel to the original series, and the only thing you realize is that, as a prequel, it is utterly without teeth.

I cannot figure out why. Even Manny Coto understood that, by "Star Trek Enterprise"'s fourth season, they should start coming up with actual STORIES that lay the foundational groundwork for TOS, stories that feel like real prequel stories that could challenge the characters, shake up out conceptions of the lore, all while leading us plausibly and often poetically... but most of all.. inevitably.. right where we already we already know it it will go, right into the first season of a show that was (for Coto) 30 years old, and (for us, now) over 50 years old. Not every story should be a prequel, but I am beginning to realize that prequels can be special things, the kind of tales where you don't know coalesces with precision with what you do know, where the stakes can actually be elevated but outcomes you are already aware of. And the best prequel ever made, bar none, is Andor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83ateBOuxpM&ab_channel=DownTheLadder

In this video, the narrator says in part "Core to the show's message is a deeply accelerationist worldview. " He explains that shis worldview isn't just Luthen's opinion, it's what causes everything to unfold in the universe as it is to get it closer to what we see in the original Star Wars film made almost 5 decades ago, "The show is UNWAVERINGLY permitted to this idea. It can be found everywhere, form improvised explosives to hush whispers." He continues to show that apathy isn't a thing, every action, even actions made in apathy, will have a reaction, a belief that our desire for freedom will be marked only by the weight of our chains It's the idea that the very action of creating the ultimate weapon and using hundreds of people, and stripmining hundreds of worlds to create it, would also create men like Cassian and others who would tear it down.

See, Andor is the greatest prequel ever made because the writers have chosen a theme, one that jives with the original work but also brings fresh relevance to the stories it wants to tell. "Strange New World" just wants to be Star Trek, light fun, but often gimmicky, often disposable. Sometimes profound, sometimes pretty damn cool, but it all feels like it would scurry back into the comfort zone of typical Star Trek, yet the OLDER fans, the ones who enjoyed the "life on the ship" episodes of TNG and other series during the 90s are impatient and unhappy... these fans don't like the new style, the new characters, or how the show treads water to keep the lore afloat.

My point, the show has no real theme. No real reason to exist. No teeth at all. No reason to even try to make it through a ten episode season, because without a theme, making it through these episodes feels like a struggle .

Andor might not be for everyone, but it's the greatest prequel ever made because it took some chances.. and because everything about it just contributes to the themes it wants to express, all leading to ending we already know that is the beginning of a story we've already seen, and when these stories join, it's near-perfect, and we are left looking at the old story, the original Star Wars films, in a new light.

How awesome is that? I wish Trek could do that. Wtih Enterprise.. man, they came close .. thank you Manny Coto!

@MercerCreate

I may not like Andor, "the best prequel ever made", but its writers had an easier job to do than the Star Trek one.
Basically Andor is a prequel to the Rogue movie and it narrates stories and topics that Star Wars hasn't touched before Rogue. So they had more material to cover.

SNW, Disco and ENT are prequels of TOS that was 3 seasons long, the TOS movies and the bazillions of STNG, DS9 and VOY episodes.
We have 3 bloody pre-TOS prequels. And ok, ENT was supposed to tell the adventures of the first ship, the other two had much less ground to cover and lots of cannon laid in front of them.
And the creators preferred to spent them with fan service while at the same time trying to make them have a "modern" touch (which in the minds was stealing elements from other TV hits).

Which is why it was a mistake to make DISCO and SNW in the first place.
I really do not get the ST fixation with pre-TOS shows. I really do not get why they preferred to make this Academy thing in the DISCO universe (that polarized the fans) instead of proceed with Star Trek Legacy in a universe which was a fans favorite.
Even wasting such a good cast as the SNW in a stupidly written prequel..
Can you imagine the same crew in a 24th century ship? with better writing of course.

@the Bgt"
Thank you for your honest responce.

The reason I think Trek prequels have more potential than Trek sequels was because of the tech. After Voyager it seems that magic can happen with a push of a few buttons, inverting the polaron theta fields, inversing the tachyon radiation pulses and viola! the bad guys are stopped! They went the prequel rote because technology can't solve every problem.

More challenging is to enhance the lore, and no just tread on it

Let me explain what I like about Andor as a contrast to nuTrek.

Andor had a clear concept:

Make a prequel to Star Wars that addresses how and why the rebellion got started through a drama made primarily for adults.

Through Andor we learn that: 1) The oppression of the Sith really was *oppressive* (to people other than Jedi and card carrying rebels) and 2) Even fighting an Evil Empire takes a toll on people and there are no free rides even for a plucky rebellion.

Andor, as Mercer notes, lays the foundational groundwork for Episode IV in a way that helps you appreciate it more.

And I'd argue that while the adult style is very different from the Buck Rogers pew pew origins of the films (especially the original trilogy) nothing we see in Andor negates or retcons those films - in my opinion actually it makes them more impactful because we see what it takes for people without lightsabers and superpowers to fight against the Empire. And to my mind seeing how these ordinary humans had to wallow in the muck just to get any traction against this invincible foe, it makes the Return of the Jedi all the more meaningful. It makes the fall of the Jedi (and the Old Republic) in the prequels more meaningful. You feel the tragedy of the prequels and the triumph of the OT more viscerally knowing what it's going to mean for the galaxy.

Is Andor perfect? No. But it perfectly executes its concept and delivers exactly what it promises in a way that enhances (or at least doesn't detract from) what came before.

Contrast this with Enterprise, which has a clear concept: show the origins of the Federation through the first real Starfleet ship named Enterprise, but bungled the execution (Temporal Cold War, Xindi arc *shudder*)

nuTrek, by contrast, mostly has no real concept or purpose other than to churn out content for the Franchise so as to generate streaming business for Paramount Plus / CBS All Access.

That said, where there is a clear concept, such as Star Trek Picard's idea of the Federation being a hypocritical ugly society filled with broken depressed people (Seven, Raffi and of course JLP) the concept is not merely different from but antithetical to what came before going back to TOS. In essence nuTrek, where it has a clear vision or concept, sets out to spit on its predecessors and negate them.

When you watch TNG or Voyager in light of Picard you either find the characters unrecognizable, or you look at them and feel sad that they are just a bunch of hypocrites pretending to be something they're not. Hey maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the Federation were conquered by the Dominion since the "paradise" was fake anyway.

From what I've gleaned about Discovery and SNW (having only watched a handful of episodes and reading the reviews and comments here) it doesn't seem these shows are as explicitly antagonistic to their predecessors (as is ST Picard) so much as uninterested in them except as raw material. These shows are like a Borg cube ripping and cutting out pieces of the old shows but in the end producing out of them something that while constructed from that raw material, bears next to no resemblance to them. It's reducing Star Trek to a bunch of spare parts in a junk yard waiting to be repurposed.

@MercerCreate

That sounds less like a sequel problem and more like a Voyager problem.

@MercerCreate
It is not the tech, It is the writing, it is always the writing.
In our case, with NuTrek we have creators that:
1) they just want to please the fans (or what they think the fans want - like a muppet show or a musical)
2) they want to expand their audience (not necessarily with new Trekkies) and they believe they will achieve this by adding elements from other hit shows.
The result was the monster of Frankenstein.
You can't "modernize" Star Trek by making it be like other shows.
But that is the easy way, cause these people lack talent.
Maybe you do not need to modernize at all.

IMHO, the only nutrek series that it was true Star Trek was Lower Decks.
At least its creators seemed to love Star Trek, something I do not get from the others.

@the Bgt
I think I agree.
As for Lower Decks... I enjoyed the first season, the deep cuts into 90s Trek to create humor... I just hated the animation itself. Does anyone every take a breath. Star Trek is a drama, above all. But I do think you are right about it.. it understood Trek.

Watching these Kurtzman shows, all I can do is groan. I remember watching season 2 of Picard, and he steps on the new Stargazer. It looks like they spent a fortune on the sets. I saw a similar set in the Starfleet Academy series.. bridges with huge, incredible looking viewscreens. But the more they try to make Star Trek look impressive, the more I just don't care. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because all of the Star Trek shows I enjoy, even to Enterprise, had pretty crummy sets and effects.. and once in a while they'd put something cool in there.... but the idea was that these sets were good enough to which you can film the stories, kind of like a stage of a play. You didn't need to have every single square inch crammed with detail . There was always a bit of campiness...as well as minimalism, in Star Trek. Enterprise, overall had the best sets.. it made it feel like a real ship, but it was also decidedly old fashioned
the NX-01 bridge, for instance, feels like something that, in 2001, was new.. yet it worked. I didn't feel bombarded with sensory details.

@Chris L: “This series needs to get past the Gorn.”

So much this! And they faked me out like they actually were going to.

@Black Oatmeal: “I hate Pike's stupid fucking haircut. Dude's 50 years old and looks ridiculous.”

Sure you’re not envious? I think it looks great.

@Stallion: “I feel like recently they have been using Number one very well.”

I agree, and I have heard people dissing her braid (oh hai, @Yanks) but I thought it looked cool. Like a Roman aristocrat or something.

@XanderW: “Together with the two previous lackluster episodes --- a scifi horror/action climax to a forgettable two-year old story, and a reset-button 'what if' dream caused by a spoiled magic child --- this show is quickly approaching Discovery quality, unfortunately. Its only saving grace are the production values and character moment (Una/Ortegas, Pike/Batel, Spock/Christine), but that won't be enough if the stories don't keep up.”

Cosigned. It’s hanging by a thread (I cut DISCO loose seasons before it ended, same with PICARD).

I have to say I really like the good Dr basically being a John Wick.

I know it was nice to see Ortegas have a consequence, but I felt it was easy. A 2 week suspension and some "training" is embarrassing for her but seems rather light considering she intentionally sped up the ship to get detected by a hostile force.

I thought the actor playing the Klingon woman did reasonably well, but I think they over did the teeth a bit, that is all I could see.. lol . I do like how they kept it well within what we know of Klingon culture and it all made sense why she was doing what she did. She got dealt a bad hand and was a sympathetic character. And she got an honorable death which was a nice ending for her. This was much better than having some regular Klingon ship just happening to be there at the exact same time "surveying".

Zombies.. well, they were silly but this is modern times and we are going to get gimmicks throughout the series as they hope it attracts different viewers than all the old school trek fans. I honestly was hoping it was some highly evolved creature that their sensors could not detect but instead we got that. They did a great job with the costumes I will give them that.

I am not sure I like what they are doing with Scotty. I get they are showing us his growth to what we saw in TOS but this is only a few years before TOS and this guy acts like he needs 20 years of seasoning to be our TOS Scotty.

Sick of the Gorn, but we are stuck with them. I wonder if they will make her look like a different creature and she spawns a new species with all the babies living inside her. Would they have the balls to make her look like the TOS one so they tie up that continuity gap (Aliens Gorn are in hibernation so the hybrid Gorn babies grow up and breed like crazy and are the ones that become the empire?).

I was curious about all the fuss around Andor on these threads, so I took a chance and spent the past two days binge-watching both seasons. (I had seen Rogue One, but I otherwise swore off Star Wars after getting burned by Last Jedi.)

My word, what a masterpiece. I get the praise. I *really* get it.

I see how Andor is everything NuTrek is not: it’s a near-perfectly prepared show about the butterfly effect, the snowballing of unintended consequences, about success and failure and ambition and failure, and about how Newton’s third law wreaks havoc on the best laid plans. Andor is immaculately planned: there are no coincidences, contrivances and conveniences; there are no wasted lines, no wasted shots; no red herrings or mystery boxes, no mind-numbing spectacle, no plot holes, no deus ex machina; characters think, speak and act in logical ways, based on what type of person they are and what kind of situations they are in; and events react accordingly. It is at all times a high-stake game of cat and mouse that ebbs and flows in perfect time. There is no snark or fourth-wall breaking. There are no memberberries (at least none that I could detect). One needs no prior knowledge of Rogue One – or even Star Wars – to fully comprehend what is going on at all times.

Andor really is a triumph, so thank you to everyone who recommended it here.

And yes, Jammer – please do review it!

@bok

Andor is one of the best written series, of any kind, in recent history. It is a very cerebral show so it's obviously not for everyone. But the level of depth, the layers upon layers, the things that make you think, it truly is a rewarding experience.

The things I really liked the most were:

1 - showing is the bureaucracy that goes behind the big plans of an evil empire. The people working the day to day operations. Some are bad people ,and some are just people making a living and have families and don't really realize what they are working for. The whole ISB stuff was brilliant.

2 - showing what it actually takes to make a rebellion. It is a very dirty business. They have to engage in things that they condemn the Empire for, just because their end goal is just. They murder, they steal, they send people to their death as diversions, etc etc. It gives so many layers to the fluffy happy rebels we see in A New Hope.

3 - the real heroes, the people who made it all happen, go compeletely unknown. Luke and Han get the medals and accolades. Not Luthen, or Cassian, or the people who died getting the Death Star plans, the scientist who made the flaw in the design, all the people that died along the way. its cold, its heartless, and its real life.

I could make many more points, but those were some of my most rewarding take aways.

@dave:

All great points. Completely agree.

Your point about bureaucracy specifically comes through quite uniquely in this series. I can't think of anything that has portrayed that aspect so well.

It's saddening to imagine what NuTrek could have been if it had been approached with the same clarity as Andor was.

@dave

"Andor is one of the best written series, of any kind, in recent history. It is a very cerebral show so it's obviously not for everyone."

So us who do not like it, we are not smart enough? We just do not get it?
I understand being excited for a show you like so much. I've been there.
But do not underestimate people who don't agree with you.
I could give arguments why I found it indifferent, (like saying nothing we haven't seen before), but at the end of the day, whatever rocks everyone's boat.
I despise Disco, but I never offended people who liked it. Just its creators :D

@TheBgt:
'So us who do not like it, we are not smart enough? We just do not get it?'

Obviously @dave can speak for himself but I found Andor to absolutely be for everyone. It doesn't require anything from the viewer apart from attention. That's great television.

I took the 'cerebral' comment to mean that there's a lot to pore over afterward in how the show has been out together, because Andor is certainly not an elitist or snobbishly intellectual show in any way. It's just not popcorn idiocy the way most of NuTrek has become.

@Bok R.Mor
Agree completely. It's just a great story.. a story that is well told. n actual STORY, not something that that just skirts with small little pieces in the timeline that were never shown.
Gilroy crafted an actual story, with thematic weight. This, by all rights, should be the minimum of what we should expect when paying for premium television.

On a separate note, I like how the show's title is kind of a trojan horse.. the first season, Maarva was in many ways the most important character, and season 2, you realize just how how important Kleya is

By

It was a good episode, with many positive character moments. I disagree with the criticisms of Pike's decision not to report M'Benga. The scene and dialogue could have been better written, but I think Pike truly knows the man well (the opening scene on the shuttle demonstrates this very well) and understands that, despite his mistake, he is a very good professional, worthy of his trust, and that the Enterprise would have much more to lose without him on board.

This contrasts sharply with Una's handling of Ortegas, demonstrating the difference in their command styles. It's also refreshing to see that Ortegas is human after all, not just an unrealistic, tough heroine piloting a ship she's never piloted before while bleeding from a near-fatal wound.

But two things completely took me out of this episode. First, the zombies. They made me laugh at several points, and they seemed more like comic relief than a real threat. I almost expected the camera to slowly start to turn to finally reveal Michael Jackson and then everyone to start dancing to Thriller.

Second, Una's hairstyle. Geez. She's a Princess Leia gone wrong. When she was in the scene, I couldn't pay attention to anything else.

@Bruno Jupiter
The hairstyles were no doubt done to make the low gravity scenes easier to film

I still think Una’s hair looked great.

@Bok R’Mor: “I was curious about all the fuss around Andor on these threads, so I took a chance and spent the past two days binge-watching both seasons…My word, what a masterpiece. I get the praise. I *really* get it.“

Awesome! It’s one of my top three series of all time, and my absolute favorite sci-fi series as my top two are non-SF. Always love to hear of another convert.

@theBGT: “So us who do not like it, we are not smart enough? We just do not get it?“

That’s undoubtedly the case for many who don’t like it. I don’t know why you specifically don’t like it. I could imagine a very smart person who doesn’t like science fiction, or specifically dislikes Star Wars, not liking it. Someone who’s smart and into Star Wars not liking it? That, I would find difficult to explain.

@SlackerInc:
'Awesome! It’s one of my top three series of all time, and my absolute favorite sci-fi series as my top two are non-SF. Always love to hear of another convert.'

Thanks.

As I sat back after my marathon watch, I realised I only had two misgivings about Andor: two episodes were wasted on the rather silly TNG S1-like scavenger gang (rock, paper, scissors?!); and the use of near copies of Arabic numerals throughout on surfaces, doorways, binoculard views etc. That's an impressively minimal litany!

It's about as close to a consistently 10/10 series I've encountered.

Ain't no party like a Mon Mothma party!

@BokR'Mor
The rock/paper/scissors bit was funny... and definitely not what you expect from Gilroy. But it was probably meant to show that the Rebellion was divided into cels and was not united. Did you notice that, during those scenes, they were on Yavin, when it was not yet a base, just a rendezvous point nicely tucked in in the gravity well of a gas giant and hidden from the Empire?

@MercerCreate:
'Did you notice that, during those scenes, they were on Yavin, when it was not yet a base, just a rendezvous point nicely tucked in in the gravity well of a gas giant and hidden from the Empire?'

I didn't! Thanks for clarifying. It makes a little more sense now, but I still think far too much time was spent on that detour.

Btw: there are now fifty references to Andor on a thread about an SNW episode. Rather telling in many ways, I think. I hope Jammer doesn't mind.

Bok R'Mor
That's why they didn't label what moon Andor was on.. Gilroy wanted the reveal to be supercool.. when he takes off at the end of season 2 episode 2 and you see the Massassi Temples, you realize that this is where the future rebel base will be.

I will agree that a little too much time was spent there, but there was so much else going on with Mon Mothma

Can't say I've been impressed with this season so far.

Of all the elements jumbled together in this episode, the zombies were the least interesting AND the least connected to everything else. Is choosing to die by zombies when you could easily have been beamed out really that honourable?

I found the juxtaposition between M'Benga facing zero (0) consequences for killing a foreign diplomat on the Enterprise, and Ortegas facing consequences for her very slight (compared to all the other rule-breaking that goes on in this episode and the series in general, anyway) insubordination quite jarring. And I don't get the impression that the irony was intended by the writers.

Don't get me wrong, I still prefer a moderately ambitious failure like this one to a by-the-numbers dumb and boring "story" like we had last week. There's gotta be a way we can have our cake and eat it too?

I did not like this episode. I usually like SNW episodes. I think the acting is great. So are the production values. I enjoy how they approach showing smart people engaged in group problem-solving. I like the balance of self-contained episodes without a magic reset button. There's a real ensemble with opportunities for all the characters to shine. But this episode I just couldn't enjoy. Here's why:

First, I know this is a long Star Trek tradition, but this must be the most egregious example of stealing a whole starship to go on a personal mission in direct violation of Federation law we have ever seen.

Second, you had a zombie episode which would have been exactly the same without zombies. How does a writer create a zombie episode in which the zombies have zero impact on the plot?

Third, Pike's little "there's no report because this mission didn't happen" is contradicted by the fact that, as @Bryan said, THEY GOT CAUGHT! Are they assuming that the Klingon ship that fired on them is going to fail to mention that the flagship of the Federation was in violation of a pretty recent peace treaty? Or that the Klingons won't bring that up with Federation authorities? It is hard to care about consequence-free actions.

Fourth, and relatedly, while I did very much enjoy Number One's command performance and the idea of actual consequences for your actions, the hypocrisy of punishing Ortegas while completely forgiving killing an ambassador, stealing a starship, violating a peace treaty (which the Federation signed in good faith!), and performing illegal, experimental genetic manipulation, is a bit too much for me to swallow.

Fifth, Pike's argument with M'Benga about Batel's treatment has all the hallmarks of a bad Disco moment. They are running from a group of Klingons, stranded on a planet infested with zombies, all while on an off-books, illegal mission with ticking clock to save a life. Now is definitely the time for an emotional discussion about relationships.

And finally, I could not understand the Klingon plot at all. I'm totally unclear how exactly M'Benga is being tracked. I don't get the honor issues here. I don't understand the why or how of any of her actions really. Things from what is supposed to be a different culture don't have to always make sense. When they don't make sense to me, you have to give me another reason to care about the story, and I just didn't have that.

There were so many stories in this episode, and not one of them mattered to me as the viewer.

Idk what is it about M'Benga, but I've had enough of his wise-sage-Yoda meek voice and tormented unwilling-soldier thing. I get it, you didn't want to be a killer in the war and it's hard to move past it, but... characters are supposed to evolve over time? Everyone else did. Even Pike. But you... you're still stuck there.

I like his kickassery, he sells it well, but that's about all I like about him anymore. He's gotten predictable, bland and boring othervise.

The plant-zombie plot made me yawn. The Klingon chick was... well, actually one of the good spots. She was honorable, and I think she'll get into StoVoKor in the end, given the way she died. Good on her.

2/4.

I can't be the first person to point out that the planet's name, Kenfori, is an obvious nod to the actor Ken Foree of Dawn of the Dead fame, can I?

This episode feels weird because it's written like a fanfic. They took a fanfic written by a random person at a random time and shoehorned current plot points into it. That's why the pacing is weird. I want to like it, and I do, but it is odd. It's a B-. I fully agree this could have been a 2 parter in a 26 episode season.

The more I watch SNW - the more I’m being reminded of TNG - Season 1.

Look at the Klingons here. Flat out villains, nothing interesting. And a now a whip! Fighting off space zombies? Reminds me of The Last Outpost with the monkey like Ferengi and their electric whips while the crew were hiding from them.

This episode was decent, I agree with jammers review. But I feel like the pulled out all the stops just to barely get to decent. I sit down now with SNW and tell my brain to just go take a shower, this show is not really for you. I’ll let the rest of my senses take it in.

Always hoping for more. It has at times been more. But it’s always the writing that’s the big let down here.