The crew discusses the first season of the latest installment in the Star Trek Universe, Strange New Worlds. We look at the episodes, messages, themes, relationships, characters (new and old), and so much more.
Download Now (right-click and save)
Hosts: Sue, Jarrah, and Kennedy
Editor: Andi
Transcription: Claire – @isolinearchip_
Thanks for all your good work on precise for each episode.
What is great about SNW is it is a riff and not just a riff on TOS but each story is a riff and they are hugely entertaining ones. We have had Stranger Things, Alien, Close Encounters, Ursula Le Guin’s story as well as riffs from TOS itself.
So the entire enterprise swings on the script and the acting. Pike, Spock and Chapel excel, Ohura, Ortegas and Khan (agree no need for that connection) are not far behind.
There were two characters that just did not leap out of the screen and one is now dead and the one character that should never have been there is out, so good decisions being made by way of course corrections.
Personally as an adjunct to the Arc Series format of Picard, SNW in every sense is the perfect complement and as you said it “looks” fantastic and authentic so much so that Disco, as you call it, is already “looking” anachronistic and does not belong with the rest of the Canon. SNW is joined to TOS and P is joined to SNG, Discovery is looking more and more like an external grab.
N.B. Rukiya was dying. I mean, I guess they made a mistake not making it a chronic illness? But it wasn’t. She was like by the Elysian episode, he was out of time. I guess …. he should have let her die? Was that the proper choice? I am VERY confused about including Rukiya in the same discussion as Pike.
Man, I don’t know. I’m not saying there isn’t room for growth but it was hella enjoyable and is it *really* all CIS all the time? Do we have to nail that all down right now, season 1 and leave no where to go and find out more about characters? Maybe it’s because of the heavy T’pring season that it feels that way. And frankly, Spock seems highly attracted to T’pring and has a valid reason to explore that but is definitely developing a deep connection (of what kind I’m not certain yet) with Chapel. Aren’t there an awful lot of people who are just fluid to one degree or another? Do they have to explicitly talk about /show their sexual preferences like “I am this! I am that!”.
I guess I’m sorry that Chapel wasn’t more clear with her comments (although to date that is still one of the funniest deliveries to me and I laugh every time with how she says that’s was a mistake. And I don’t think at all she meant it was a mistake that the “gal” was a woman.) but I thought it was pretty clear. She’s not straight at any rate. She’s definitely passionate about everything. I love that. She’s awesome.
Does Spock have other sides to his sexuality? maybe. Mostly I feel like at this point he’s simply pretty freaking unexperienced all the way around. That’s what I see. He’s a babe in the woods with relationships period. We just don’t know enough about a lot of the other characters and it’s only been 10 eps. I still feel like I know enough about Ortegas to love her. I think she can be hilarious and also deeply feeling. That’s good for me for now. I would love to hang out with her. She’s interesting. I agree Number One was really shorted this season but I do think there might be a lot more of her next season.
Oh well. I really enjoy it and I enjoy having a less heavy live action series that, yes, is a bit like my childhood comfort food TOS. It’s still one of the best formed season 1s of any Trek series out there.
Apologies for a long one.
My feeling with Spock, and maybe this is me reading too much into it, is that he thinks he should be with T´Pring. Not only because they are engaged or whatever but not marrying a nice Vulcan lady would make him less Vulcan and he already feels too human sometimes.
Number One is the character I was most excited to see. I´m very disappointed that we haven´t had more time with her. It´s like they don´t know what to do with the character. I loved her in Disco and Short Treks but while I still like her they´re definitely not using her as they should.
I do love Ortegas however I do wish she had been given more in season 1. To Kennedys point Melissa Navia said in an interview “if there´s a connection she´s going to go for that” which sounds like Ortegas is pan.
I´m so sad about Hemmer, I still haven´t forgiven them. Here they create this interesting, character who I wanted to know more about played by a great actor and you fucking kill him off! Also not a great look killing off the first and only blind character. I was worried they would replace him with Scotty but according the an interview with one of the producers the engineer in season 2 is not him which I´m glad about.
I´m so annoyed they´re doing the Gorn this way. And I can´t reconcile The Gorn captain from Arena to these. If they wanted to do the Gorn, fine but either do the Gorn more like they were from Arena or do these scary aliens and call them something else.
The worst thing about Pike talking about his future is how he refers to it as death. Yes, it is the end of how he lives now but he is still alive. But being completely honest, I understand what he is saying. If I learned that I would be horribly disabled in an accident and lose the ability to speak and move and communicate in any way I would probably feel like it was a fate worse than death as well. My hope is that he and this hypothetical me would learn to move away from that. And honestly, the technology we have now is better than what Menagerie-Pike had so SNW-Pikes chair will be better too.
I find it interesting that this was supposed to be the lighter show but here we have a crew and captain who 1) are the people who don´t walk away from Omalas. So to speak. They feel bad about it but they leave. I imagine some of the other captains saying no way in hell are we leaving without helping the Majalans figure this shit out. And 2) They have no problem seeing the Gorn as plain evil and without motive. The only time we´ve seen that is probably the Borg and even then we saw that story and viewpoint evolve.
And also I want to punch Sam Kirk in the face. Repeatedly.
I agreed with most of the takes on this episode. I like SNW well enough but it’s so safe and predictable that it sometimes gives me Disney Channel lol. Discovery and Picard(Picard especially)lean into edgy and depressing and they don’t always hit the mark but those characters at least feel real(and are explicitly queer!)and there’s a level of relatability because of how human they all are, whereas on SNW, everyone feels like stock characters almost? I’m hoping they settle and better develop as the seasons go on, but there’s something very mild about this show and idk if it’ll work for the long term. I just feel like a show called Strange New Worlds should actually try to really expand and delve into the strange of the ‘strange new worlds’(and plots!)lol