“Through the Lens of Time”

One of the better written episodes of the season so far. It visited familiar ground, but it didn't feel trite to me. It appears that this episode is laying the groundwork for the rest of the season.

Star Trek does horror! Again! The horror!

SMW rips off "Last Crusade"

SNW finally gives the whiners an episode where they explore a strange new world and people still whine.

This was easily the best episode of season 3 so far. For me, this is what Star Trek should be; exploration, strange new worlds and new civilisations. More of this please!

3,5 stars from me!

Mildly interesting episode from about halfway through, once all the ‘Star Trek: Strange New Feelings’ stuff is gotten out of the way (La’an and Chapel discussing their love triangle was a low point: ‘We’re all adults here,’ – apparently not). Unprofessional professionals yet again, basically. (Pike asking for a ‘full report’ from M’Benga and then two seconds later, ‘How are you holding up?’ and a pep talk later on was simply bizarre.)

Redshirt Gamble was used quite well, and with hindsight the opening scene about how ‘awesome’ working on the Enterprise is – and him hugging M’Benga (over the top, but completely NuTrek behaviour) – was a decent enough red herring that certainly fooled me (I thought he would simply die on the away mission). The actor playing Gamble was particularly good when he switched back and forth between (purportedly) Gamble and the entity possessing him, and very unsettling at times when trying to manipulate the rest of the crew.

The utter idiocy of not using scans, safety gloves, picking up artefacts by hand, though – I realise this was a plot contrivance so that Gamble could have his eyes blown out (!), but the idea that the away team would simply continue to poke around after what happened to him was highly implausible. (And how utterly reckless was ‘Chapel’ – as a medical professional – to allow herself to get pricked by that needle? You wouldn’t even do that now, on Earth.)

The basic idea of the alien prison was intriguing, but under-used – and the ‘walking on thin air’ bridge was a rather abrupt conclusion. I would have liked more time focusing on what exactly the prison was, and who the prisoners were, and less time on the crew discussing one another's feelings.

No idea at all what the Batel interlude was meant to be.

Pelia is a profoundly irritating character. ‘I have no scientific way of putting this but whatever it is, it gives me the heebie-jeebies,’ and then that apparently intentionally hammy monologue at the very end, put on for the (in-universe) character?

Oh well, at least this episode had a strange new world.

Overall, a fair-to-middling episode that played around with some standard Trekkian elements. The cast were mostly great as usual, even when they’re given a mediocre script to work with.

Correction:
'...put on for the (in-universe) camera?' (Beto's specifically.)

the red alert stuff was odd. The ship went abruptly went to red alert during the sick bay fight. and then it was turned off.. only to come on later

This was "Star Trek" to the NTh degree!

Thoroughly enjoyable ep. It's really hard to find much to complain about here.

One observation: It's a good thing Spock decided to join the landing party!

Time for Star Trek: Event Horizon it seems.

This episode had quite the long, slow windup, with a pre-credits opening of like 10 minutes. The episode managed to check all the boxes of the serialized character arcs. Korby is around again, for some reason, and Chapel isn't really settled about how things ended with Spock, though Spock seems find. Weirdly, La'an and Spock seem to have told everyone they were boning off camera, though it's apparently no big deal and promptly jettisoned. Ortegas's brother is back to flirt a bit more with Uhura without ever making a move. Batel's medical condition is put to the fore, again. And Nurse Gamble returns, to great impact - for the last time, it seems. Not every one of these plots really needed to be addressed before the opening crawl, which sets the episode on the wrong (unfocused) foot.

The real plot finally gets going after the title drop, and following Gamble's injury, it quickly splits into a traditional A/B structure, with one playing as a pretty normal set of Trekkian archeological mystery/problem solving, while the other is firmly sunk into eldritch horror tropes.

The more traditional Trek section here is the away mission locked in the alien facility. I wondered at first why it was such a bloated away mission, but two characters are done away with quickly (Gamble beamed back aboard, and the token native vaporized due to terminal stupidity), and they wisely use the whole phased room concept to split up the crew into three sets of dyads. The flirting between Uhura and Ortegas's brother does nothing for me (kiss her already, you damn fool), but pairing off Spock with Korby and Chapel with La'an led to some interesting tensions. Korby in particular comes across as more flawed here than in Wedding Bell Blues, with his obsession with immortality setting the seeds for his eventual corruption in TOS. My only concern here is that Spock didn't bring up the whole Katra thing with Korby at all, as there's pretty much canonical proof of the immortality of Vulcan minds within canon, should they choose to go through with it. More broadly, they did attempt to set up a sense of danger/forboding/dread, but the B plot is doing the heavy lifting here this week.

Back onboard the Enterprise, we get to see Nurse Gamble slowly lose his mind as he becomes increasingly possessed by the Vedza. While this section was a bit tropey, it was very well done, with Gamble's actor (Chris Myers) switching between the two modes with creepy perfection. I'm not sure the inclusion of Batel going into Gorn mode and engaging in hand-to-hand combat with him was strictly needed, but I trust they're going somewhere with it this season. I could have done without Pelia's exposition at the end (could have done without Pelia in general in this go around), but I did appreciate the episode began with Gamble's POV, and ended with M'Benga notifying his family of his death. It's a pretty classic move in episodic fiction to give these guest characters a moment to shine before their demise, but it's classic for a reason.

On the whole, I think this was a good episode, but it would have been better if the writers didn't feel the need to tie in several ongoing arcs. If they'd cut out the Uhura/Beto flirting, the stuff with Batel, whatever Pelia and Scotty were doing in engineering, and toned down the opening relationship drama (which is pretty nowhere through the whole thing) this episode could have been one of the classics.

I posted this for the Season 2 finale: https://www.jammersreviews.com/comments/?id=110184

Batel's and Spock's reactions to these parasites make me think that I might have been on to something when it comes to the true nature of the "Gorn" on SNW, and that there really may be a pathway of sorts to the TOS Gorn.

@MercerCreate
The first red alert was when M'Benga was thrown into a wall, the second was when "Gamble" broke out of the brig. It seems like a good thing for the ship to detect those things and set off an alert on its own, though admittedly it's not consistent with any past/future starship behavior

Yeah, they should have scanned more. They should have been more careful. But this is before TNG, VOY and DS9
This is the best episode so far... so there are still problems.

//This was easily the best episode of season 3 so far. For me, this is what Star Trek should be; exploration, strange new worlds and new civilisations. More of this please!//

Agreed. It is exploration. It is more science-y. It is horror. Going into prophets, progenitors vibe. In Doomsday machine in TOS gave that unknown elements. It is similar to Picard season 1.

The problem is the needless romance.

@Cynic ty. Yeah I've been a Trek fan for 50 years and have never seen Red Alert behave like that. Usually it will pop on without the "red alert" command should something hit the hull that would threaten the entire ship.

I just think they did it because the fight scene looked cooler with the red lights.

But overall this episode lacked a through line, a theme, or any kind of drive. I was watching with a bunch of friends so maybe I missed something, but what was up with the alien race who hated Starfleet/the Federation but wanted a limited away team? And when the large structure was revealed.. followed by people dying.. why would they still be so obstinate?

@MercerCreate, I almost heard the Indiana Jones music! I really liked The Last Crusade, it's actually my favorite, even more than the first (sacrilege, I know).

I think they added a WHOOOOSH sound effect when Gorn-possessed Batel whipped her head around to look back at Pike. Reminded me of the Shaw Brothers kung fu movies of my childhood.

Definitely enjoyed this more than the last one, but it is strange having the comedy episodes abutted against such brutal horror! Though at least there wasn't an exploding head, a la TNG Conspiracy. 😁

I didn't mind the Pelia gag at the end. It made me laugh, welcome after such trauma on board the starship Enterprise.

No more big bads. No more people having horrible things happen to their eyes. No more Spockstine. No more Buhura. Just stop it and write Star Trek, instead of Star Wars, Aliens or Starman. People who liked this episode and hated the last one: what's your favorite SAW movie?

People thinking this episode is horror quite clearly haven't seen a single horror movie in their life! And that comes from someone who hates horror films.

I wouldn't have described it as a horror episode either, but it did remind me that this episode constitutes yet another exhibit in the frankly disturbing Kurtzman eye torture fetish gallery.

It's not a horror episode, it just features disturbing evil beyond description taking over the dead body of a crewman and using him to kill people. Yeah. That's not horror at all.

This is literally a demonic possession episode, but sure, it's not horror. Whatever guys.

Something is horror whether or not you personally find it scary, just as something is comedy whether or not you find it funny.

Unlike the zombie episode, this didn't rely on cheap jump scares or anything. But the fingerprints of H.P. Lovecraft were all over this thing.

This isn't a particularly important debate for me, but I agree that the eye torture and body possession of course fit the generally accepted definition of horror elements. I have no argument with that at all.

I wouldn't describe 'Shuttle to Kenfori' as a horror episode either, by the way, despite the zombies.

In genuinely more important matters, I forgot to mention that it was rather amusing that Ortegas' brother had considerably more screentime than Ortegas herself in this episode. She was only briefly present in a single scene, apparently on the way to a new hairstyle, too.

Impressive episode with a better re-use of the premise of Power Play from TNG season 5

This was a strange (new) world. Definetly not a feelgood episode.

I liked it, but something was missing in the tempo. In some ways it was similar to Among the Lotus Eaters, the episode that I like at least. Here they could keep my interest. Much better composed.

I was very impressed by nurse Chapel until she got lovestruck by Dr. Korby. Impressive how Bush manages to personate this, to me, more unsympathic personality.

Entertaining but derivative. Again! Let me count the ways. Possession, phase variances, archaeological mysteries, and last but not least redshirts. That and we have more feelings. We're 5 episodes in and we haven't crossed the threshold from mediocre to genuinely interesting. At the midway point, the bar has been lowered. Too bad, there's so much story to tell and we get plots that we liked in the 60's, tolerated in the 80's and 90's but by now they're as stale as week old bread.

- So before the horror turn, I honestly thought that the white googles that Gamble was wearing were an indicator that M'Benga was going to fashion a 23rd century version of the VISOR.

- N'Jal (the blue alien who gets vaporized) called the evil "Vezda-pah". I'm wondering if these might be a nod to the pah wraiths from DS9. They don't necessarily need to fully connect the dots, but it sort of tracks with the concept of evil entities that need to be contained and imprisoned.

@Daniel:
'- So before the horror turn, I honestly thought that the white googles that Gamble was wearing were an indicator that M'Benga was going to fashion a 23rd century version of the VISOR.'

Same. Thought they were going to say this was the prototype and tie it directly in. Glad they didn't. Not everything in later Trek has to be foreshadowed.

@Daniel,

When Batel goes into "Gorn mode" she also calls the entity Vezda-pah.

I have to believe this is deliberate foreshadowing.

If you guys are going to continue to torture yourselves by watching modern Trek, you should check out Prodigy. It's the least bad of the modern shows.

I suddenly feel the urge for a "SNW" and "Evil" crossover.
It would be amazing!

Common writers, make it so, both series are Paramount.


p.s.
The lack of security measures in everything is hilarious.
You people already mention what they shouldn't do in the excavation site.
But having a "dead" contaminated person in your sickbay without any kind of security is enormously stupid. Especially after you had recently faced an army of zombies.

p.s.2
I can't stand of M'Benga.
I even prefer Burnhum. There, I said it!

p.s.3
I like GornTel. Actually I wouldn't mind a spin off with her.
She is the most interesting thing this season. So far anyway.

Much better! This episode finally lived up to the show's name. Yes, there were elements of non-Trek stories like The Last Crusade and Event Horizon, combined with TNG's Power Play. But the plot built nicely, used the Gamble character to good effect, put our characters on the planet in a tenuous situation where they had to employ some outstanding logic to resolve, and left us with a bit of mystery as to what's happening with Captain Batel... 3 out of 4 stars for me. Let's see more of exploring the unknown.

First interesting episode of the season. A bit disjointed with the execution however it held my interest. At least they kept the relationship drama to a minimum. Unfortunately they foreshadowed much more of it to come.

Not sure why people are complaining about the "horror." Star Trek has always had episodes like this going back to TOS. What the hell have people been watching all these series? Do they intentionally edit their memories?

If you were shocked about this "horror" then your flabber must have been seriously gasted When the salt creature was running around the ship replenishing its electrolytes fresh out of the flesh of the Enterprise crew.

One wonders if you also clutched your pearls and shivered ye timbers when Khan dropped an alien earwig or two into the eardrums of Checkov and Captain Terrell who had to phaser his damned self to get away from the "horror."

Are the evil creatures related to the ones from TNG's Realm of Fear? I kept thinking we'd seen creatures like that before, but I couldn't figure out where.

This one kind of reminded me of "Power Play". That episode did not impress me. But what continues to bug me about SNW is that it can't be taken seriously. Characters just aren't professional, except for Spock in this episode who was more in line with how he should be. Others are far too casual in their conversations. But at least we get a death of somebody who is more than just a no-name. Too bad it wasn't Ortegas.

There are some potentially interesting ideas of some ancient culture trying to achieve immortality through some kind of dimensional shifts or what Pelia went on about in the end about the evil of the Vezda. But ultimately, it just comes down to body possession. We get to see what effects the Gorn are having on Batel -- but I don't think this is very compelling or intelligent -- just an opportunity for an action scene here.

There's a mish-mash of having faith in traversing a chasm (a la "Raiders of the Lost Ark"), an attempt at forming bonds between certain characters -- but it is just not convincing and it doesn't add up to anything. This episode is pretty simple: Investigate an ancient temple, get possessed by an evil non-corporeal alien, phaser the host and capture the alien and beam it into space, while the others in the temple place pieces of the puzzle together and exit the temple. And throw in some talk about evil...

2 stars for "Through the Lens of Time" -- at least SNW tried to do an episode without gimmicks. It put the focus on Chapel, tried to have her make tough choices like between Spock and Korby. It got Spock to be more like TOS Spock, and had small contributions from other cast members. It's just that the story is simplistic (a sign of weak writers), and tried to incorporate some sci-fi that ultimately came across as hokey for me.

FUCK me that was HOT!! Some tantalizingly titillating sci-fi mysteries. I pretty much cummed duriing the episode! Was the sci fi here as ORIGINAL as I hope and think.and not an Indiiana Jones rip off like some said..I see no similarity with any Indiana Jones? Am I wro g..no Crysyal Skulls were harmed during the making of this episode??.

And that MOMENT at the end wirh Pelia was HILAAR! Almost fourth wall breakingly funny...anyone else think so??

I liked it okay. 2.5 stars is my bet. :)

For once, they're not dealing with a moustache-twirling villian, they're doing scientific research, they have a puzzle to figure out, even if it is kind of a locked-room mystery that gets dealt with a little too easily.

Improvement, but still hung up on some stuff. I will agree with others here saying I don't like Pelia at all. She seems like an unneccessary character and is adding little to the overall proceedings. Carol Kane is delightful, but this character is dumb.

Still, there's action, stakes, ancient civilizations, ongoing plot threads...this episode is having to do a lot and it is pretty deft with how it's doing it. I just wish it didn't seem so unfocused. It feels like Star Trek, but not completely. I don't know how to put this in a way that is unequivocal, and I guess that's what the episode is doing. Equivocating.

The actors in this show should be commended. They're all firing on all thrusters, all the time. I love their performances, even if I don't like the writing as much.

I need a compilation video of some kind of all the dumbass ensigns in Star Trek picking up, touching, or interacting with obviously dangerous devices and/or objects. Sucks that Gamble got redshirted. I liked him. :(

On a similar note, I had no idea that eyes could be regenerated. I feel like I've watched a ton of Star Trek, but I don't remember something like that ever being a thing.

I really liked this episode. The reveal that Gamble basically died immediately and that the entity had been possessing him was great. I also really liked watching the away team solve being trapped in a multi-dimensional prison. I wonder who built it.

On a side note, Korby seems like a bit of an impatient adrenaline junky. The away team could have left the prison and reported back to the Enterprise once Gamble was injured. Then, they could have beamed back up and called for a more properly equipped archaeology team to excavate/explore the prison. I suspect the reason why he was so resistant to a more cautious approach is because he wanted to be the first to physically explore the site. He did say that he'd waited years to reach this point.

My only real issue with the episode, other than walking 20 feet to report back to the Enterprise, is that Ortegas' brother didn't use his drone to further explore the temple. I know he isn't used to being in such a dangerous situation and he's there to record a documentary, but, still, I think he could have been a bit more useful.

Other than that, this was a great episode.

As a stand-alone episode, "Through the Lens of Time" is a competent slice of sci-fi horror and easily the strongest offering of the season so far. But as part of this season's broader story arc, it raises several red flags. Chief among them is the growing doubt that all these plot threads will ever tie together in a satisfying way, no matter how clever the writers are. There are just too many disparate elements pulling in different directions. For example, how exactly is the "Ancient Evil" storyline (already an awkward fit for Star Trek) supposed to mesh with the "Fun with Gorn DNA" subplot?

Then there's the tonal whiplash. The show swings wildly between grimdark horror and goofy "fun" episodes from week to week. In earlier Trek, lighter fare acted as a palate cleanser between heavier, more thoughtful outings. Here, the darkness is pushed past the pale for Star Trek, while the goofy episodes strain credulity in the opposite direction. The extremes feel unmoored from a consistent identity, leaving SNW on the verge of a full-blown tonal crisis.

A related issue: the increasingly lazy plot device of turning established characters into mindless puppets in service of a disposable story. Whether it's possession by Gorn DNA, mind control from Ancient Evil aliens, or holodeck/Trelane-style manipulations, the result is the same -- stripping away the very personalities the show has spent time developing, rendering them interchangeable. It's cheap drama at the expense of character integrity.

Also: after being trapped in an "Aliens" movie more than once, you'd think they'd know better when things start getting spooky. Read the room, guys! You're clearly in "Prometheus" now. At least call the Enterprise before marching deeper into the ominous ruins.

@Jammer:
Perceptive note about the misleading title. Because of the title, I was half-expecting some kind of timey-wimey twist throughout. Another red herring. Fair enough.

@Rahul:
'But at least we get a death of somebody who is more than just a no-name. Too bad it wasn't Ortegas.'

Agreed, and I thought the same while watching. Like with the rooftop struggle from 'Shuttle to Kenfori' I was aware while watching the peril in the temple that of the main cast, only La'an isn't in TOS. So the stakes for 'Chapel' and Spock are automatically non-existent.

For any kind of meaningful stakes, away team ('landing party') missions in the future would have to consist first of foremost of La'an and Ortegas, and anyone else who isn't in TOS (Pelia?). (To be fair, La'an and Ortegas have been included often.)

I was quite satisfied by the use of Gamble in this episode, but in future it might be a good idea to have Ortegas and Pelia doing a Tasha Yar. It might even give the two characters a decent send-off and make them retroactively less irritating.

La'an has to survive, of course. She's simply too good a character. (Which makes me fear her days may actually be numbered, for the sheer dumb shock value from these writers and producers.)

I wondered why they didn’t send drones with cameras and sensors into the building before bringing people in. Especially after they saw the skeletons. I mean, we can do that now so they definitely would do that in the future.

Schrodinger’s Horseshit.

@Rahul @Bok why do younguys not seem to like Ortegas or Pelia, if I may ask?

@Leif

I find Ortegas to be a tediously one-dimensional snark and quip machine, with utterly woeful dialogue (her slang from season one is probably already outdated, and she flies the ship, you know). Latterly now just sulking and moping about and staring daggers at everything and everyone.

Pelia is an unnecessary and deeply irritating character who is neither amusing nor endearing and contributes nothing whatsoever to any scene or episode she's in. She meant to be quirky comic relief and it falls flat every single time.

A case could be made for Ortegas having been short-changed by the writers over time but Pelia's inclusion in the show is mystifying.

I am however grateful that we have Ortegas in the show for the simple reason that it gave us the scene in 'Shuttle to Kenfori' where Una hauled her over the coals.

Decent episode, and finally one which features exploration and strange alien shenanigans. I was getting a bit frustrated about the total lack of professionalism, though.

First, we get Chapel who recklessly interfaces with the alien door mechanism (which is later seen vaporizing someone) and lets herself---a medical professional no less---get stabbed by a rusty alien needle. Next, we have half of the whole bloody away team that objects to stepping outside for a few minutes to contact the ship, while literally being within 10m of the door. Also, the whole being-trapped situation could likely have likely been solved if they had just left someone to wait outside who could call for help or activate the door (assuming that Chapel wasn't the only one able to do so). They could also first have surveyed the site using drones---the episode ironically enough shows that they have AI-powered flying drones, so why not use them?

I get that this can come across as nitpicking, but if characters who are supposed to be professionals act so stupid and irresponsible it really pulls me out the episode.

Agreed, Leif and Xander.

Even when it's not great, SNW is entertaining. The writing is competent and the actors and characters are compelling to watch. I don't think this episode was perfect by any means, but probably was some of the best Star Trek since 2005. It might just have introduced the scariest new aliens since the Jem Hadar. Betel's instinctual response to the alien reminded me of Guinan's instinctual response to the Q or the Borg - she's part of an ancient race that knows about ancient terrors in space.

My one big recommendation to the writers of the show is to be a bit more comfortable with staying in the moment and not turning everything into a joke. Pelia's speech at the end was haunting precisely because she's usually such a flippant character, but having her then quip that she could do another take for the camera undercut the tension.

The angles on the triangle made from the two dishes (which were only a few feet apart) and the Enterprise's double phaser beams would only make sense if the Enterprise were the size of a toy model and situated about 10 or 15 feet above the ground. 😒

Are the writers for this show obsessed with the Ridley Scott alien franchise? They've mind that terrain repeatedly in other episodes, and now we're getting it here as the new nurse grabs an alien orb and puts it up to his face and gets an eyeful (two eyefuls, to be precise) of pain for his trouble.

Spark would be justified in having major "I told you so" energy now, but presumably he isn't that petty. And I suppose that since he was the senior officer, it's actually his fault for letting the others persuade him.

Wait, M'Benga can regenerate eyes, but 100 years later Giordi has to settle for a fancy visor, at least in the early seasons? I called BS on that. And I hasten to point out that I honestly don't mind that the viewscreens and controls look more advanced on nuTrek than in TOS. This bothers a lot of other people, but I see it as being similar to a theatrical set for a play, where we don't expect every detail to be ultra-realistic like we might in a movie. Those 1960's instrument panels were representing the future the best they could with the limited technology available at the time.

But to have not just the appearance, but the fundamental function, of technology be so far ahead of where it is canonically shown to be a century later? That does bother me.

I was already going to say it was either brave or reckless for Spock two take something he found in that chamber and put it up to his eyes right after the nurse had lost his by doing something similar. But then Spock acted even more recklessly by staring at one of those exact orbs until the little scary critter inside said "boo".

I definitely wasn't expecting Marie to go all kung fu on the nurse/evil monster.

OK, so they are in the same room but in "different planes of existence". This means they can't see each other or hear each other biologically, but their communicators still connect with each other? Hmm 🤔

This whole episode, including the way it looked, had the vibe of a Stargate SG1 episode. That's not necessarily bad: I watched a ton of episodes of that show. But it feels a little weird for Star Trek.

In general, I enjoyed the scene of confrontation, ending with the Vezda getting trapped. But what was the little thing Scotty grabbed and scooped it up with? It seems like there was some exposition missing there.

"You want one for the camera?" Haha, that was pretty good.

I have a number of quibbles with this episode, but at least we did get a planet of the week, a "strange new world" if you will, and there were some cool sci-fi concepts in play. I'm going to go 2.5 stars.

From reading/watching reviews and on youtube, in addition to my views, it is not that people dislike Ortegas. It's that Ortegas has nothing to do. We know more about Gamble than we know about Ortegas. Ok, she can fly the ship. Anything else?

Also, IMO, this is how it feels to me
Pelia: Before, I liked how she worked well with Scotty, stressing him out to produce marvelous stuff. I have no problem with the comedic/foil elements, but to me sometimes it is "over the top" and too "meta" - thinking about thinking/Marvel joke. I think she needs to do more too

//but having her then quip that she could do another take for the camera undercut the tension.//

Exactly. Pelia could have done that quip privately with Beta, rather than whole room. Very meta/Marvel. Dont like that.

*Beto Ortegas (not Beta)

@Leif

Exactly what Bok said.

I would just add that the actor playing Ortegas is unsuitable for Trek (even this version of Trek) -- she is miscast and obviously poorly conceived as a character, which is the worst combination for an actor/character.

@Rahul, @Leif

I agree Navia is miscast and it's becoming more and more evident with each episode, unfortunately.

One of my biggest disappointments in SNW as a show was the unnecessary killing off of Hemmer. He was an unusual and compelling character and I liked the dynamic he had with the rest of the crew. He was thrown away extremely cheaply in a pointless swipe from Alien; Bruce Horak has since returned in guest roles so I never understood why they decided to drop him from the main cast. Such a terrible waste.

Hemmer was replaced by the Carol Kane *still* apparently playing the fairy from Scrooged, only this time she's put on Bobcat Goldthwaite's voice for additional 'comic' effect. I half-expect Pelia to be dragging NuScotty around Engineering by his ear or booting him in the balls, also for 'comic' effect. It's awful and jarring and does nothing for the show.

I have to disagree with Navia being miscast, because that would require knowing what/who Ortegas is actually supposed to be. And what do we know about her?
- "I am Erica Ortegas, I fly the ship" (from "Among the Lotus Eaters", alledgedly the "Ortegas episode") .
- "Ortegas is at the helm, the pilot seat is my realm" (from Subspace Rhapsody)

The writers really don't seem to know what to do with the character besides having her fly the ship. IMHO the best stuff they wrote her was pranking Uhura into wearing her dress uniform to the captains dinner way back in S01E02.

Now granted, for a writing stuff for the pilot can be a tricky because outside of flying the ship there are few things that the pilot has to do and flying the ship itself should be routine in most episodes. Also that position realistically requires being on the bridge and being part of an away team. IIRC in ENT Travis Mayweather, the helmsman, was also the weakest character. But on the other side VOY managed to make Tom Paris one of the most interesting characters, so it can be done.

Two and a half stars. I mostly liked it, and was tempted to give it a low three stars for the second half alone, but I can’t get past the uneven screenplay’s interminable first half.

The good: We finally get some “strange new” things in the second half of the show, including a serious effort to explore some sci fi ideas. A lot of it boils down to fresh spins on shopworn TOS tropes: Noncorporeal beings seeking bodies for nefarious purposes, red shirt deaths, mysterious alien temples with hidden purposes, parallel landing party/shipboard perils, alien power source puzzles, etc.

Yes, it feels a bit like AI extracted and mixed the elements randomly, but it feels like a fresh cocktail of story elements we haven’t seen this strongly since the 1960s. It’s well acted and paced; M’Benga’s anguish hits well. It also tosses in an intriguing issue of time/causality flowing differently inside the temple that, while not terribly interesting or well developed enough to linger in the mind, is at least an effort.

The bad: Why does it take so long to get to the “good stuff” in this one? Seriously, pacing matters: If the episode had simply started TOS-style with a short mission brief in the conference room, with just a line or two to establish the new guy’s excitement about his first planetary survey, would we have lost anything truly essential to the story? Quite the contrary, it would have allowed more time to develop and focus on the main story.

Instead we get more pointless “who’s dating Spock” scenes that waste time without any connection to the story at hand. The throwaway moment with Pike’s love interest grappling with the possessed crewman works a bit better. But then we get a rushed conclusion where the landing party simply walks out of the temple without learning the context or meaning of anything that happened. We only get a few musings on good vs evil. Seriously? This one should have trimmed the fat and focused on more of a revelation/denouement; instead it feels like the worst sort of TOS episode (those “inexplicable evil” ones that always get 1 star from Jammer) merged with the worst kind of TNG soap opera B-scenes.

Boo.

A strange new world, an interesting science problem, and a creepy performance by Gamble. Yeah, they lean into the horror aspects a bit much for my tastes, but I didn't think this was overdone or gratuitous. They foreshadow some catty high school escapades between La'an and Chapel for future episode, which.... ugh. But other than that this was pretty decent.

I don't hate Ortegas. The actress is fine, or at least I think she is. She's not given much to work with. The writers have no idea how to expand on this character and now they've apparently sidelined her. Maybe they'll have some Ortegas-centered storyline later in the season that really makes her setup pay off this season, but so far it looks like they gave her PTSD and made her get in trouble for insubordination as a way to write her off without killing the character.

Maybe contract reasons required her to be in x episodes this season and they will kill her/have her resign later, and meanwhile just give her a cameo in each episode? I'd rather have some deeper arc where we learn more about her, but whatever. Hopefully they eventually pick a solution and stop limping her character along. Does a disservice to the fans, the character, and the actress.

Although I gotta say, having a character develop PTSD, then having them develop into behavior problems on the job, and then just having them fade away until they get drummed out of the service and/or get killed is a depressingly accurate portrayal.

@Walding:
'I have to disagree with Navia being miscast, because that would require knowing what/who Ortegas is actually supposed to be.'

This is indeed a fair clarification. What I mean by 'miscast' is that Navia hasn't grown into the role the way virtually all the other cast members have in theirs, some of whom (Una springs to mind) also haven't had that much more to do themselves (Una was also sidelined in her own focus episode).

I completely understand how unedifying and demoralising it must be for Navia to slog her way through the lines and scenes they give her, but that – unfortunately – is literally part of the job. My impression is that she's seemed sullen no matter what this season (it was very noticeable last episode when everyone was meant be having 'fun').

Compare Navia with any other cast member and they all make a shit script shine, and consequently probably get more and better lines and scenes and character development over time (again, look at Romijn). Bush and Chong, particularly, are the writers' darlings in this regard for very good reason.

(Even Wesley as NuKirk seems more at home in his role than Navia does in hers.)

One final (separate) point is that the 'I fly the ship' line is such a bizarre statement to write anyway. I often think it's because the writers seem to believe that only one person is capable of 'piloting' the Enterprise – as if the ship wouldn't be able to go anywhere if Ortegas wasn't there (I know this isn't the case because they put Ortegas on the naughty step in 'Shuttle to Kenfori' so someone else must have been 'flying the ship' in her absence – but they give a very strong impression of it most of the time). The writers go on about how 'flying the ship' is such a unique burden/honour for one person to 'bear'. It's very odd, at least to me.

I don't know why people like this episode.

It just seem to be a dark room with people with flashlights.

It's all just action and Gore even. And of course that nutty technobable up there which was completely absurd . What is the point of the episode? Don't we have to have points in Star Trek episode? Do we buy that? It was about trust as a two-way street? Does Spock need to apologize again?

I'd say this is a bridge to nowhere.

PS — just to call out Jammer’s inconsistency, I just wanna point out that this episode is a little more than a high budget spin on the sort of material TOS did in That Which Survives and The Lights of Zetar, two consecutive Season 3 episodes that earned 1 and 1.5 stars from him, respectively. How SNW’s reheated leftovers gets 3 stars from him is a mystery to me.

Consider:

Survives offers us a mysterious evil alien technology that simply kills a bunch of crewmen before the Enterprise escapes and moves on without learning anything insightful about or from it.

Zetar adds noncorporeal beings possessing people to a similar horror show plot. Jammer wrote of the latter:

“Much of the episode consists of lackluster scenes where the crew attempts to determine the nature of the Zetarians and their hold over Romaine, and a few scenes analyzing Romaine herself as a crew member having trouble adjusting her attitudes to her new assignment. There's simply not much here worthy of mention for good or ill (though the inability for an understanding to be reached between humanity and the Zetarians is perhaps a telling sign of the decline of the series' idealism). Overall, a tolerable but fairly pointless episode.”

I think the same points apply to this week’s SNW: It’s tolerable but fairly pointless, a horror show without any successful effort to connect with or empathize with the aliens involved. Or am I missing something?

I enjoy this site and Jammer’s reviews, but I’ve never understood his blatant disdain for TOS, evident in the short and snide reviews he gives to it. Quite frankly, third season SNW feels a lot like third season TOS or late-stage Voyager to me, with lots of fairly pointless and forgettable gimmick or theme episodes. The difference is that TOS was still fresh, not ripping off previous incarnations of itself.

I think of Jammer’s SNW reviews are straining a bit too hard to find good things to say, and working a bit overtime to convince us there are good moments in this series. There really aren’t. At this point, I actually miss the bonkers energy of Discovery’s early seasons, because at least it didn’t feel like the deadening creative bankruptcy of SNW. Even the better SNW episodes like this one have pacing issues and plot inconsistencies. Of course I’ll watch to the end, just as I watch my favorite NBA franchise fall short every year, but I have a sinking feeling about Star Trek after this. Just feels like it’s running on creative fumes.

@ Walding: And let's not forget Sulu. He grew in character over time.

So can we just kill of Pelia already?? She is so annoying, why can't we just have Scotty being chiefengineer? Pelia may have been good for a few episodes as Scotty's former professor, but now she is distracting and annoyoing always following Scotty around and criticizing him and saying weird stuff adn then deciding she doesn't have to attend staff meetings called by Capt. Pike.

@Davidw-

Yeah, I get that. But it was entertaining, and that is about as much as I hope for these days. I've lamented in other threads that even many "good" episodes of SNW are mostly just decent action plots without much intellectual heft to them, like Hegemony Part I. If you ask me, even "First Contact" was mostly just an unthinking action flick, but it is an action flick that most people liked (including me). Maybe you just like those less than most?

I'd disagree that every good episode of Star Trek has to have a major point, but I do wish this series had more of it. I've come to accept it on its terms. This series does mostly action and goofball episodes.


Spock has got nothing to apologize for, except maybe for trusting Chapel when they very clearly should have gone outside and brought the ship into the loop and discussed how to proceed. Kinda glad he threw that back at her face in the end, which is how I chose to interpret it.

It did strike me as very odd that they did not take safety more seriously. Like sending drones in first. Or at least figure out the door mechanism so that they don't get locked in, which is obviously a real threat given the dead bodies. If they did that, they might have also noticed it was equipped with functional deadly lasers.

I'm willing to overlook some of that when the plot requires it, but this one was weird in that they actually made it a plot point when Spock pointed out they were clearly in danger and not following proper safety protocol and then he got voted off the island. Since when are away missions democracies? There is a CO that very clearly gave an order to evacuate and contact the ship before proceeding and everyone was just like, "Meh, whatever dude." So, yeah, that bothered me, and is why I could never give it a 4/4 on the jammer scale.

I'd give it a 2.5/4 or maybe a weak 3/4 for its entertainment value and strong acting performances. Easily the best this year.

Eh, Idk, I can get behind Ortegas, she's goofy as hell but she's got a certain panache about her. I think the problem is that they haven't bothered to write anything important for her to say or do (yet). Flying the ship is nice, but uh, Idk how to put this, the first guy to fly the ship in Star Trek was swinging a sword around with his shirt off pretending to be D'artagnian by Episode 4.

Even Sulu, who usually was relegated to being a side character, got something flashy and interesting to say and do. If all she does is fly the ship, then uh...well that's great but I've never flown a ship. I've never flown anything.

So...I'm glad she's a good pilot but in a giant starship holding like 300-400 people, you don't exactly get a sense of the heft or the dynamics of say, a fighter jet or starfighter...it's just...she makes the thing float in the direction she wants it to? Idk, it's always seemed floaty and breathless to me. DS9 had some good ship-to-ship choreography. But I don't really watch space battle on Star Trek to see death-defying starship piloting, I guess.

Ortegas is a character that needs work.

Pelia doesn't belong in the story. She's just too weird. Carol Kane of course plays her with great aplomb, but her purpose as Scotty's mentor is kind of vaporous. I'd rather watch Scotty be Scotty.

I do not think Ortegas is a big issue in SNW, although it shows the quality of the writing. I like her, even if she mainly is reduced into saying 21th century stupid "Top gun" lines while "driving" the ship.

I recently started watching TOS for the very first time, I am now in season 3 (yes, I had the pleasure to enjoy the Spock brain episode - nobody warned me!! ) and it is quite obvious the difference between how the crews behave. In TOS they look and act more professionally, even if there are some moments that would never happen in a ship's bridge, like officers disagreeing and questioning orders in front of the rest of the crew.
But at least they do not behave like high schoolers who decided to go for some space exploring before college.

Una was very strict and serious with Ortegas' insubordination and that was fine.
Chapel, Laan and Spock's complete ignorance of basic security measures cost the lives of 3 crew members and one of the local aliens.
What Una had to say about that? Did Chapel even realize her idiotic decisions killed 4 persons?
I know we need drama and for that we can bend realism a bit, but the inconsistency of this show sometimes can be too much.

Agree with everyone, Pelia sucks. Being a quirky very old alien is cool but they have written her so over the top its just "go away please"

Ok, so we have one of our commenters talking about the Gorn we see here not actually being the Gorn. I think he is really onto something.

The rection by Batel .... clearly her "gorn" side knows who these other beings are, hence the reaction. The odds of the " real gorn" having the telepathic ability to know who they are, by name, considering they have been in prison for so long is a stretch.

So, this may head towards some sort of being/parasite taking over the Gorn people and they have some ancient blood feud with this other evil species. Heck, maybe they are the ones that imprisoned them. The SNW Gorn do seem awfully advanced.

It could go anywhere, but there is clearly a battle coming between the SNW Gorn and these beings. (they made it clear the one they stupidly put into the transfer buffer instead of in the middle of the closest star, is infiltrating the computer). I guess, we can speculate, it ends up at some point getting us to our Arena style gorn (with nicer modern costumes of course but at least a similarity).

And of course, this could just be Discovery not caring about appearances (like Klingons) and they made the Gorn this way and will keep them this way for the series and not care about Arena.

And as soon as I saw that missing bridge.... LEAP OF FAITH.... was so obvious. I don't mind a Last Crusade call back though. It was a cool movie.

or maybe this is a pah wraith tie in? That would be weird and interesting.

@theBgt:
'Una was very strict and serious with Ortegas' insubordination and that was fine.
Chapel, Laan and Spock's complete ignorance of basic security measures cost the lives of 3 crew members and one of the local aliens.
What Una had to say about that? Did Chapel even realize her idiotic decisions killed 4 persons?'

You can be sure that I would prefer that all crew members who acted incompetently got the same excoriation from the ship's second in command as Ortegas did (in but one single scene in the entire series, let us not forget).

That they don't is in and of itself evidence of rather bad writing. It wilfully creates two classes within the crew: those who will be punished for rule-breaking and those who won't. Most of the main cast are in the latter category.

The overall message from the writers seems to be 'Do whatever you want, all the time'. Consequences don't really exist in NuTrek. It's a weird form of elitism and exceptionalism. Special people getting away with special things because of a lack of self-control.

//Consequences don't really exist in NuTrek. It's a weird form of elitism and exceptionalism. //

Let's not forget, this is before Kirk, Picard, Sisko or Janeway

Quote: //In contrast, Star Trek: The Original Series' era feels more appealingly dangerous, with hostile aliens and space gods. TOS is also looser and freewheeling. Kirk and the Enterprise often engaged in "cowboy diplomacy" with a Wild West quality to the final frontier.//

In Flashback Voyager episode
Janeway says
//It was a very different time, Mr. Kim. Captain Sulu, Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy – they all belonged to a different breed of Starfleet officer. Imagine the era they lived in. The Alpha Quadrant was still largely unexplored, humanity on verge of war with Klingons, Romulans hiding behind every nebula. Even the technology we take for granted was still in its early stages. No plasma weapons, no multiphasic shields. Their ships were half as fast… Space must have seemed a whole lot bigger back then. It’s not surprising they had to bend the rules a little. They were a little slower to invoke the Prime Directive and a little quicker to pull their phasers. Of course, the whole bunch of them would be booted out of Starfleet today. But I have to admit, I would have loved to ride shotgun at least once with a group of officers like that.//

Completely forgot about "Wolf in the Fold" in TOS

Being daring is one thing, acting without thinking is another.
Like opening an ancient locked door in an alien planet and not taking any kind of security measures after you find dead people inside.

Of course they weren't much better in TOS, all high command were going together on the same away mission, but at least they were taking some red-shirts with them to take the bullets.
I watched an episode today when a red-shirt drunk water from an alien planet and of course he disappeared as soon after.
They did not trained them very well back then in the academy..
Also self preservation didn't seem to be their best skill :D

How lucky was 'Chapel' (and the away team that would have been trapped with her) that these aliens' preferred method of entry for bodily possession is via blown-out eyeballs and not pricked fingers?

More and more evidence that the writers are merely people who wanted to write stories for a Trek-like universe (non-dystopian future, humanistic ideas, cool tech) but couldn't because it would seem too much like Trek, so they went to write for Trek...and ignored what was already there.

Same as the Halo series writers obviously wanted to write stories for a war-bound future heavy on conspiracy and supersoldier stuff but couldn't because it would seem too much like Halo, so they went to write for Halo...and ignored what was already there.

Go get your own universe.

Personally I thought this was dreadful - horrific in places, but deeply dull in others. Plus, I'm getting really tired of muddy, poorly-rendered CGI. You watch the opening credits and it CAN look bright and vivacious - yet, so often in the episodes it looks like dreck. Not enjoying this season anywhere as much as S2 - the only decent episode so far is the one with Trelane and Q.

Not watching this season and I don’t know how any of you can justify it in the face of Paramount’s supplication to the Trump administration and it’s creeping authoritarianism.

This’ll affect you too, though it’s already likely hit your pocketbook.

@MidshipmanNorris

“I can get behind Ortegas, she's goofy as hell but she's got a certain panache about her.”

Perfectly said. I like her a lot, and I think it’s that panache. I am not sure why folks are mad about her saying “I fly the ship.” That’s from the episode “Among the Lotus Eaters,” and it was part of how she was trying to recover from having her memory altered. When she has said it in other episodes, I always took it as part of her “grounding” process to settle her mind. Especially after almost being eaten by the Gorn, that phrase was her touchstone—a way to stay connected to reality when her brain wanted to freak out. But I do wish they’d use her more. She has a unique plucky personality for Trek and I think they could do a lot with it.

Compare her to Uhura, who I don’t dislike (I don’t dislike anyone), but I just don’t find her that interesting, especially compared to Nichelle. She doesn’t seem to have much personality.

I DO like Pelia. I know many seem to find her irritating—I find her hilarious. I think it’s partly because I just love Carol Kane and I like seeing an older actress with a good role. I guffawed at her line about doing another take for the camera. She had me all freaked out talking about this ancient evil, then cracked me up.

I liked this episode, but the similarities to other properties (as others have noted) kind of took me out of it. Except I would have liked La’an to harshly shut down Chapel with something like “You dumped him and now it’s none of your business.” Chapel is ticking me off this season and it’s partly because of the new longer hairstyle, lol

According to ‘Junior Medical Officer’ (I thought he was a nurse?) Gamble’s opening log, the Ensign had been aboard the Enterprise for six months, indicating that three months or so have passed since the episode Wedding Day Blues. One supposes that in an age of near-instantaneous information transfer, Dr. Korby could carry on his theoretical research pretty much anywhere; nevertheless it seems somewhat unusual that the significant others of crew-members can move on board a Starfleet ship for long periods of time. Civilian passengers were notably absent from the ship in Kirk’s era; perhaps it was a matter of Captain’s discretion.

It is also a matter of note that the mission to Vadia IX (which ‘Trelane’ indicated had once been the Q homeworld, remember) is not officially funded or supported by the Federation, and appears to be more in the nature of a favour on Captain Pike’s part. For a scientist of Korby’s stature (Spock described him as the ‘Pasteur of Archaeological Medicine’ in What Are Little Girls Made Of? and his work was required reading at the Academy) effectively having to beg a ride from his girlfriend’s boss is a little demeaning.

In passing, it should be noted that in the aforementioned Original Series episode, none of the crew, other than Christine Chapel, showed any sign of being previously acquainted with Korby. That episode also noted that Chapel had given up a career in bio-research to sign aboard a starship after Korby’s disappearance; yet another ret-conning of history.

Captain Marie Batel’s continued presence on board is also somewhat surprising, although as a Starfleet officer she has more reason than Korby to stay aboard ship. Her medical condition would seem to warrant the resources of a Starbase at least, yet here she is, still under the care of a single doctor with other duties to perform. Of course, it must be remembered that the integration of Gorn DNA into her body came about as the result of a mission that was technically illegal (see Shuttle to Kenfori); it is possible that Starfleet has not been fully informed of her status. In view of what happens to her in this episode, that situation cannot last forever.

In retrospect, the introduction of a background character so emphatically popular amongst the Enterprise crew should have made it obvious that Dana Gamble’s days were severely numbered. He might just as well have worn a red shirt.

Gamble’s rookie mistake was to pick up an unidentified object because it looked interesting. In his defence, one has to note that if the glowing orb had been designed as a prison cell for a non-corporeal entity, it was ridiculously easy for that entity to break out of – just wait for an idiot to pick it up, then detonate it from within.

So, what exactly are the Vezda-Pah? Malignant non-corporeal creatures are nothing new to Star Trek; there was Redjac in Wolf in the Fold, the unnamed entity from Day of the Dove, the Pah-Wraiths from Deep Space Nine, to name but a few. The nature of the Federation’s new foe has been left somewhat ambiguous here.

Firstly, consider that the Vezda-Pah were located on Vadia IX, implied to be the ancient homeworld of the Q. Are they the equivalent of Q criminals? If so, Trelane’s attempt to break up Korby and Chapel’s relationship in Wedding Day Blues may have been more significant than just juvenile annoyance at Korby, but more of an attempt to prevent the prison being discovered at all.

Why are the Vezda-Pah and the Gorn so mutually antagonistic? The mere appearance of one can activate the partial DNA of what is now effectively a Human-Gorn hybrid. But the non-corporeal entities have been incarcerated for centuries at least. How did they come in contact with the Gorn?

Vezda-Pah. Pah-Wraith. The choice of name cannot be a mere coincidence, surely. What relationship can possibly exist between imprisoned evil spirits on one world, and the cast-out anti-Prophets from the Fire Caves of Bajor., other than the fact that both are equally malignant? Are the non-linear temporal effects within the prison connected to the Prophets?

Why so many languages on the warning plaques? And why Chinese (more properly Hanzi)? Had the alien entities who constructed the prison once visited Earth?

One must have faith that these questions will be answered in later episodes; it will be interesting to see how the producers tie up all the loose ends left here.

The landing party were happy to beam back to the ship alive; they didn’t noticeably take anything back with them. And yet, somehow, a conveniently empty prison orb from the planet was conveniently at hand for Scotty to re-incarcerate the entity that emerged from Gamble’s body.

Further consigning the orb into the transporter buffer is also obviously not going to turn out to be one of Scotty’s brighter ideas. The creature was non-corporeal to start with; all that has been accomplished is to render the orb non-corporeal as well.

Whatever one may think of Strange New Worlds’ treatment of Spock’s love-life, the ramifications are threatening to spill over and affect the ship’s smooth operation. La’an has taken to addressing Nurse Chapel as ‘Chapel’; not Christine, not Nurse Chapel, just Chapel. Some tension is apparently present; how this will affect their professional interactions in future remains to be seen. And still T’Pring seems to have been forgotten. Judging by how often she popped up onboard ship in previous seasons, six months is a remarkably long time for Spock and his notional fiancée to have been incommunicado.

This episode was incredible average. Very mid. I've been rewatching Orville, and even their "average" episodes have more thematic relevance and character development than this.

How come the alien possessing Gamble was able to telepathically know about the redshirt guard's mother, but when it wanted to know command codes from senior officers it could not just pull that information out of their minds and was therefore resorting to threats instead?

@SlackerInc-

It seemed to only know about dead loved ones. It knew about M'Benga's daughter, too. I assume it can somehow communes with the dead directly and doesn't read the living's thoughts at all. Not that the demon tells the truth about what they have to say, but it can learn about its marks through their dead relatives.

That or it can only sense dark thoughts related to death and despair and not "what's his email password" type of stuff.

Or the writers never considered the incongruity of a telepath asking for passwords.

Hey, look at that! Five episodes into season 3, we have a strange new world!

(I'm a little late to this one as I was at STLV all the last week, so I'll keep it brief...)

"You want another one for the camera?" - holy shit, I wasn't expecting a laugh line like that at the end of an episode like this. I belly laughed. Well done, Carol Kane!

I'm with you on this one for the atmosphere, Jammer - the creepiness and body horror stuff was all very effective for me. This show does light-and-fluffy better than any previous Trek, which taken as a whole can also have the detrimental effect of making it seem lightweight. But a *positive* of this show's lighter tone is that it makes the more somber stories hit harder when they come along. "Under The Cloak Of War" last season also benefited from this.

The worst criticism of the episode that I can come up with is that it wasn't able to hold my attention enough to stop me checking my phone occasionally, which is a very rare occurrence with this show. The creepy vibes are effective but the delivery of the various plot threads is muddled and not all the ideas land, which resulted in me just waiting for some scenes to be over.

I'd probably go with two-and-a-half stars but otherwise agree with the bulk of Jammer's analysis.

I like Pelia. She’s a good mentor for Scotty and her puckish nature fits a character who’s lived for 2.5 millennia. If they don’t kill her off, it would be fun to see her in the new academy show.

Moving on to this commentariat’s other punching bag, I don’t hate Ortegas at all, and while I agree she hasn’t had much in the way of character development other than being a hotshot pilot, it’s not like she’s ruined any episodes. I’m holding out hope her ptsd and disciplining pay off in some way.

I’m pretty sure these Vezda are going to turn out to be kin to the Pah Wraiths on Bajor by the end of the season. What I’m less sure of is why extra dimensional beings of pure malevolence appear to have a pre-existing grudge with the Gorn. (An idea reinforced by Spock seeing a Gorn in the Vezda glowy ball.) Chance of stupid nonsense is a bit high with this thread but I’ll reserve judgment until we see where it goes.

Overall, this episode was a big old gumbo pot of references: Indiana Jones, Prometheus, Move along Home, and most of all, the season 7 TNG misfire Masks.

Surprising then, that I enjoyed it thoroughly.

3.5/4 stars and the best of the season.

Do we think the Vezda aliens are related to the bugs in TNG's Conspiracy? I've seen some fan speculation that they're related aliens. And we never got a follow-up to Conspiracy.

I want to make a point on how often Paramount Plus, the home of Star Trek, gets the names of the episodes of the various Trek series wrong. For this episode, it’s spelled “Lense” on the app. Other times, episode names are swapped, and often there is no episode name. I’ve noticed this with other series, such as South Park

@Rahul @Bok huh Immcurious why youbgiys think Ortegas is miscast..I dont see it..bit Ibjavent paid that kich attention to the charscter honestly but she seems like a fine actornto me.or is it the writing more? Like you fuys think she is underdeveloped and underused like Harry Kim or Trsvis Mayweather or something?

I ljke Pelia..thought her line at the end of this epiaode was hilarious and memorable..but to each his own..sorry not everyone is happy

@Leif:
I explained my view on Ortegas being 'miscast' in a little more detail here:
https://www.jammersreviews.com/st-snw/s3/through-lens-of-time.php#comment-122921

SNW is desperately in need of an episode like “I, Borg” or “The Enemy” where there’s a clear attempt by the crew to understand the opposition.

I think the actress playing Ortegas would be properly cast if she was in some kind of kids show or comedy given her goofy disposition and look with that bizarre haircut. She looks out of place as a Star Fleet senior bridge officer. She just doesn't exude professionalism or technical/tactical experience & knowledge. Note that I'm saying all of this before even getting to how poorly she's been written -- and that's even relative to a show like SNW that can't be taken seriously anymore.

Rahul said: "She looks out of place as a Star Fleet senior bridge officer. She just doesn't exude professionalism or technical/tactical experience & knowledge."

IMO this is largely due to nuTrek's dialogue style. It's a very snarky, ironic, postmodern style of speaking, filled with non-sequiturs and sass.

In Ortegas' case, it's hard to take her seriously when she's always saying things like "pro tip" or "kaboom!" or talking back to Pike like he's her sorority sister.

The dialogue - reheated Joss Whedon-speak - gives most episodes a very juvenile tone. The characters themselves are often warm and likeable, and the plots decent, but the dialogue sort of dumbs everything down.

This reminds me of a thread over at Trekbbs where someone was complaining about the silly hairstyles. Almost every response was "Well, duh, it's the FUTURE, so if COURSE everyone is going to have a haircut that makes them look like a dipshit." I wonder how they square that with all the contemporary dialog.

Kudos @SlackerInc — “How come the alien possessing Gamble was able to telepathically know about the redshirt guard's mother, but when it wanted to know command codes from senior officers it could not just pull that information out of their minds and was therefore resorting to threats instead?”

That’s one of many lame holes in this plot. All power to viewers who coasted on atmosphere here, but this episode is dreadful from a creative standpoint. It goes nowhere and reveals no insights or attempts to empathize with alien life, then ends with a cheap “well I guess evil is evil” cop out.

For what it’s worth, I like Carol Kane. But I also liked Diane Muldaur in Season 2 of TNG, so my taste is arguably deplorable, to paraphrase Paul Scofield in A Man for All Seasons.

A show can be average, but what sucks about SNW is how it constantly reminds us how much better TOS and TNG — its main sources of plagiarism — were. In particular, TOS approached the galaxy with a heart open to discovery, but all SNW gives us is unexplained bizarreness and well worn tropes with middling execution.

So I'm assuming that nurse was killed pretty much from the start, and the entity took control of his body like a meat puppet? That would explain the lack of brain activity and cells not regenerating (for his eyes).

Grim ending for a rookie medical nurse.

D3c3 t sci-fi episode. Not flashy, but interesting. The dark wid3 of the inner light.

*Decent*

This may be the most Star Trek episode in all of nu-Trek.

Loved it. Nice conundrum for the team to figure out. Everyone contributed. No "Mary Sue". No mystery box crap.

Easy 4 stars from me.

Probably the best nu-Trek episode so far.

Bravo. More please.

Ye Gods, the horror! They really have taken the gloves off. We were nearing Event Horizon body horror here. Tonality SNW is all over the map. How is this episode part of the same show as A Space Adventure Hour?

I wish there was a bit more balance.

Laughed out loud at Pelia’s last line in the conference.

And it was very Trekian all around.

I liked this episode for its strange new worlds and for the escape-room like mystery. I enjoy intellectual adventure stories, which is why I enjoy Star Trek. But it wasn't what it could be. I don't mind that ideas have been done before. Do it well and I will enjoy it. Spock and Uhura on the comet was so good. I hope the writers look to that and stay away from James Bond/Indiana Jones.

Last episode Ortegas was rightly reprimanded for going against orders and risking everyone's life. This week the landing party violated protocol (not to mention common sense) and four people died. Anyone going to be held responsible for that? I get it. No one wants to watch "science officer's log, we are on our second week of orbital scans. I expect to put in long hours in the lab every day this week." But raising the safety concern and then never returning to it after things go badly gives such a sense of arrogance combined with bad judgment. It turns me off. See e.g. Archer in ENT "Strange New Worlds." At least in ENT they made people dying an actually big deal.

I enjoy Star Trek as fundamentally a workplace show. I like seeing competent professionals who enjoy working together. I am not looking for a soap. Romance, love, flirtation, sex can and do happen in the workplace. I enjoyed Kira and Odo and Tom and B'Elanna. Picard and Crusher's sort-of thing was great. I'm just concerned about how much it is showing up in SNW. On this away mission you had Spock with his history with Chapel and current thing with La'an, plus Chapel's current thing with Roger, plus Uhura and Ortegas's flirtation. I'm glad that they didn't make those dynamics central to the away mission, but it still felt like a bit much.

I don't hate James Bond or Indiana Jones or any of those. Just not in Star Trek please!

Like most SNW, the better episodes are still held back by a bunch of little frustrating decisions.

Why is NURSE Chapel some expert in this science and archeological stuff?

Why does Spock have to act like a petty brat around women?

Why must there be so much melodrama and over acting?

The premise for the episode is good, but the trappings let it down.

2.5 stars for me

@Bok R'Mor thanks for answering. I respectfully disagree because I like Pelia but can see why ppl find her annoying. I don't. And I dont mind Ortegas. Too bad the show can't please everyone.

Really enjoyed this episode. It was actually the first episode in third season that I actually liked. Does it get held back by the convoluted plot and the melodrama surrounding all the romantic entanglements? Yes in my view.

Also, while I like overall what they’ve done to the Chapel character (she’s a different character than the one we saw in TOS- she’s stronger, more self confident & ambitious), they do indeed go way overboard with her expertise in all these different fields which seems to be largely dependent upon on whatever the plot is. It’s starting to go over the top. Did the same with Batel (Captain & then suddenly the head of JAG with a Gorn infection?). It’s like there’s no other officers in all of StarFleet that exist (or least ones have any kind of talent or ambitions) outside the ones we see here each week. Are they the only ones deserving of such promotions?

Enjoyed getting to know Gamble until he met his instant demise by just being curious. You feel something for his tragic passing. This brings up something that I’ve always felt is an issue with all the Trek series. If it’s the lives of the main cast or someone you got to know, their passing is horrific. The loss inconceivable. Yet the lives of anyone else doesn’t seem to be of any consequence. No one seems to give them a second thought. In this episode, other lives were loss as well. Doesn’t seem like anyone much cared about that.

Overall, there’s a mystery to this episode. A feeling of teamwork solving the puzzles. It works for me despite the issues it had. I liked it.

So we ripped off Alien, now we'r ripping off Indiana Jones? Cute.

At least its not a horrible ripoff. Some creepy scenes, and the 'evil spirit' taking over Gamble vas apropriately evil for the sake of being evil, no greater plan (yet). Some security redshirt getting his neck snapped THRU a forcefield... thats a new one.

Ehh... it had it's fun/creepy moments. 2/4 stars.

Dude, this is a legit 4 stars trek episode. Not "this season", not "for SNW". It's a legit 4 stars STAR TREK episode.

(and yes, every man in this series is afraid, unstable and/or insecure and all the women are super cool, calm and in control. I guess we haven't reached gender equality yet: we are in a "feminist revenge" stage, in wich the opressed is manifestaing his awerness as dreaming being the opressor.Nonetheless, a 4 stars episode)

I'm not sure if it's my advanced years, but I struggled to understand what most of them were saying even with the volume turned right up. They seem to mumble all the time.

It's not just you, Bob. I've been seeing complaints about sound quality on modern shows and movies for years. Recording, mixing, or actors simply not enunciating or some combination of the three. Whatever it is, it's a pain in the ass.

My hearing isn't what it used to be either, but it's funny how I can watch a show from the 60s at low volume, but have to triple it for a modern movie.

No problem hearing those ear splitting explosions or annoying commercials though.

Almost gave up on my favorite soap opera SNW until they made this episode which reminded me of Star Trek.

Negatives - Still having characters that act like college students. Spock and La’an just having fun times? Next week Spock becomes a swinger! Also I thought Spock had his first command on the Galileo 7? I remember there Spock learning about how logic isn’t the only factor in command. I bring this up not as a continuity canonist, but to ask WTF is the point of number one on this show? Why doesn’t she lead some away missions and actually build a character? Pelia is like some weird hybrid of Guinan and Neelix. Also how some white/red shirt guy is able to have his eyes regrown but poor Geordi needs to live in lifetime of pain with a visor? This show could be called Star Trek: Strange New Retcons.

Positives : Hey these guys actually went back to the office! Interesting mystery on the planet. The SNW soap opera writers decided to take this week off to watch Bridgerton so the Star Trek writers could try to make a science fiction episode. These other writers did a pretty good job. I liked the effect before cause idea. They probably got that idea from the soap opera writers who like to put preachy speeches in the show before they are earned through actual character development and good stories. I’m not sure what I think about the Dino battle in sickbay.

I have nothing negative to say about Pike this week and that’s a glowing compliment.