Spoiler Alert Friday
Reflections and open thread on Strange New Worlds, "Shuttle to Kenfori"
[Note: I’m not sure I want to commit to weekly posts on the new Strange New Worlds episodes, but this has been my only Star Trek exposure of late, because a minor back injury (thankfully now healed) has prevented my rowing and hence my rewatching.]
The overarching structural principle of Strange New Worlds isn’t any particular plot thread or character arc, but the exploration of genre and homage. The first episode of this season was a military strategy thriller; the second was a romcom; and the latest was zombie horror. To quote myself (from Late Star Trek, still available directly from the press, from Bookshop.org, or from the Bezos Collective) on some previous examples:
“Space Amok” (SNW 1.5), in which Spock and T’Pring swap bodies, is a clear riff on Freaky Friday (1976); “Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach” (SNW 1.6) is a variation on Ursula K. LeGuin’s “Those Who Walk Away from Omelas”; “All Those Who Wander” (SNW 1.9), with its battle against fierce Gorn hatchlings, feels very much like the film Alien (1979); and, perhaps most incongruously, “Subspace Rhapsody” (SNW 2.9) imitates the famous Buffy the Vampire Hunter (1997-2003) episode “Once More With Feeling” (2001), in which the main characters are stunned to realize that they are periodically bursting into song as though they are in a Broadway musical.
Perhaps because I happen to be less interested in zombies more generally, I didn’t find the zombie element in this episode especially engaging. The follow-up on M’Benga’s assassination of the Klingon general turned Federation ambassador in “Under the Cloak of War” (SNW 2.8)—which is easily the best Strange New Worlds episode and arguably the best Star Trek episode since the end of Deep Space Nine—was welcome, but something of a mixed bag, in part because of the various plot contrivances surrounding the episode as a whole. The entire mission is completely off-book, as Captain Pike decides to go rogue to save his girlfriend, Captain Batel. They violate disputed territory, risking a renewed war with the Klingons, and encounter a Klingon ship—but thankfully, the Klingons turn out to be rogue themselves, as the captain is the daughter of the assassinated ambassador and suffered discommendation when he betrayed his people. In the course of the show-down with the dishonored daughter, M’Benga reveals that he had been lying to Pike about killing the ambassador in self-defense and that he actually assassinated him and has no regrets. But Pike can’t respond to this revelation officially, because the entire mission is unofficial. So he has to let his chief medical officer get away with cold-blooded murder, apparently.
Something similar is going on with the subplot involving Ortegas, the helm officer with virtually no acting chops. (Presumably this is an homage to Enterprise’s helmsman, Ensign Mayweather, also played by an incredibly mediocre actor.) She goes rogue-within-rogue by disobeying direct orders in order to try a risky rescue maneuver. Number One, in command while Pike and M’Benga are on the surface, is similarly limited in her options for reprimanding Ortegas and gives her two weeks off duty, during which she needs to attend mandatory webinars on chain of command. This is a troubling change for a previously one-sidedly chipper character—but we already know that it is not an organic development, but a result of being scratched by a Gorn. Hence it’s already built in that everything will ultimately go back to normal and Ortegas will be her completely uncompelling former self soon enough.
I have to admit that I’m puzzled by the laxity of discipline on Pike’s Enterprise. It seems to go beyond the Picardian vibe where everyone is free to speak up if they have an important insight to share, regardless of rank. Often it crosses the line to outright disrespect—for instance, even the nameless substitute ensign in the season premier felt she could mouth off to the captain. The fact that they’re so often going rogue or defying orders from Starfleet creates an almost chaotic atmosphere, in a way that I’m not sure is intentional or well-considered. I also worry that the reliance on top-secret or off-book missions is emerging as an all-purpose continuity kludge for a writing staff that sometimes seems (understandably) impatient with the prequel format.
All in all, though, I thought it was a serviceable but unremarkable episode. But what did you think?
Ortegas's behavior isn't due to a Gorn infestation (that's Batel). It's lingering trauma from being nearly killed by a Gorn (and, as alluded to in this episode, from the Klingon war). I thought the episode handled this issue quite well (and certainly in comparison to the trailing threads of "Under the Cloak of War", but more on that in a minute). Ortegas has always been brash and combative, so having her cross the line into open (well, stealthy) insubordination is both in character and deeply disturbing.
Nor do I agree that Una ignores the seriousness of the violation. The basic conceit of Star Trek has always been that its ships operate with much looser discipline than the actual naval vessels they were based on, and in exchange their officers are extremely deferential to the chain of command. Ortegas breaking that contract is something that both Una and La'an are clearly disturbed by, and her punishment - visibly being removed from her station and forced to take remedial training - isn't meant to be punitive but humiliating, because what she has done is something a Starfleet officer shouldn't be capable of. And, it's clear from how the dressing down scene ends that this is not the end of the story.
Also, I just categorically and completely disagree with your characterization of "Under the Cloak of War". To me it epitomizes the core failure of NuTrek: to wit, that the neoliberal gen Xers currently running the franchise are constitutionally incapable of grasping the post-war liberalism that underpins it. Their idea of liberalism is soft-hearted and gullible, easily fobbed off by buzzwords like "peace" and "forgiveness", with the only alternative to mindless acceptance of the empty promises of a would-be guru being cold-blooded murder. TNG would have done the whole thing a hundred times more intelligently: Rah would have been a genuinely compelling character; Picard would have investigated him himself; the question of whether to expose a liar and risk derailing his mission of peace would have been given the serious consideration it deserved; and a murderer would not have been permitted to remain on the Enterprise. Frankly, if the follow-up in "Shuttle to Kenfori" feels unsatisfying, that seems to me like further confirmation that the original episode was too shallow to support its pretensions. The reason Pike can't address the fact that his CMO and old friend is a murderer is that, when you boil it down to its essentials, the people currently running Star Trek think that being a murderer is cool.
yeah, the over-reliance on references to other movies/sci-fi continues to be a weak spot on the show, especially when it's not so much a nod to something as a straight-up re-imagining that should have mentioned the source material in the credits. It's not quite plagiarism but it still feels like cribbing someone else's work because you don't know how to do it yourself. Really looking forward to the day trek has less hacky writers again.