I can't find
a ST: SNW thread! Odd. I enjoyed episode three enough I wrote a casual blog:
I’ve been enjoying
Star Trek Strange New Worlds, but in the latest episode they hit upon the true and original spirit of
Star Trek. The episode had humour, action, but also deep feelings and tragedy. It had in all, including some science so laughable it’s forgivable.
I do have one big disappointment with the series, the choice of actress for Uhura. Perhaps it’s just hard to live up to the awesome Zoe Saldaña and of course Nichelle Nichols. The space-fear the writers chose to give her in the beginning didn’t help.
*SPOILERS FROM HERE*
La ‘An really came to life here for me. I’ve always liked her, and loved the first officer. I enjoyed the look at her day-to-day life on board, and laughed a bit at the scenarios. However, as a black belt in karate, I find her punching style puzzling. It looked like she would injure her shoulders in no time. In the method I’m used to, you punch with your whole body, keeping the shoulders fairly even and the back straight. You drive in with power from the hips and leg motion.
I enjoyed the connection to the time-war in Enterprise, even though I wasn’t sure that whole thing should have existed. I love fantasy, but
Star Trek is supposed to be science fiction, and boxes to zap you into another time stretch the limit for me.
I loved the double entendre “You have to get to the bridge.” Well done! Her reaction when she saw who was on the bridge was great.
This alternate Kirk is a little different from the classic one, but after a bit I decided it was realistic since he grew up and lived quite differently. This one was more sarcastic, and perhaps more selfish minded for a time when his impulse was to resist righting the universe because he would cease to exist. It was great fun watching the shopping and chess games. They got the smugness and arrogance down for this Kirk. Yay, a Kirk who finally learned the Vulcan nerve pinch! LOL toilet plomeek soup.
I predicted that Pelia wouldn’t have the know-how to help them. Even the one in the right time line didn’t seem like she should be technically inclined. How would one in the past have the skills?
How well Kirk knows himself, saying one timeline wouldn’t be big enough for two of him. I wasn’t surprised at the tragic death, though I wished it didn’t have to happen. This Kirk living in the other timeline would be a great alteration to the future. The Temporal agent wouldn’t allow it even if he made it there. I reminded myself it wasn’t a real loss, as he would have been lost anyway.
LOL, the classic Kirk kiss! It seemed just right, except that, as my husband pointed out, traditionally it fell about a third of the way into the episode. The actor managed to look a lot like the “real” Kirk at that and other times. Wonderful!
I do have reservations about possibly messing with cannon. In
Space Seed, Kirk et al didn’t mention anything about augments still being in existence before they woke some up. Spock was working with one in this take on TOS history!
There is no
Trek episode that is truly perfect. Choose any episode, from TOS on down, and you can find problems. However, what makes a great episode is the fun, optimism, bits of humour, just enough action, and most importantly, the sense of wonder and character drama.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow had enough of all that to push it close to some of the classic greats such as
City on the Edge of Forever.
A catch-up comment on the season opener. They did introduce some glitches in the classic universe.
Galileo 7 was supposed to be Spock’s big first command, in which he had to learn how to deal with being in charge of humans with emotions. This Spock seemed to have no one being bothered by is making coldly logical choices. They seem to have advanced Spock’s learning curve beyond where he was at in TOS.
I could go on, but you get the idea. A great episode in a good, and, it seems, nicely evolving series.