Strange New Worlds is back for Season 2! This was a fairly solid episode, although there are a few things I didn't care for.
The Enterprise is docked at Starbase One undergoing inspection. Number One is still in jail awaiting trial. There's apparently someone who could help her case that Pike goes off to find, and that's all we see of those two this episode.
No sooner is Pike gone than Uhura picks up a secret transmission from La'an, who is on a planet near the Klingon border. Spock requests permission to go, but April denies the request since the Klingons currently control the planet and the Enterprise could incite another war.
Well, this is Star Trek, so everybody decides to steal the ship to go help La'an. They fake a warp core breach, which scares off all the inspectors... except one. Pelia (played by Carol Kane) sees the fake-out for what it is, but decides to help out partially because she's friends with Spock's mom.
La'an has found Newt's Oriana's family on this planet and also blundered upon a plan by the planet's inhabitants to restart the war in order to get rich selling dilithium to both sides.
M'Benga and Chapel get caught giving medical aid to some of the locals and get kidnapped by the bad guys to give them medical aid. They get away by... *sigh*... taking a super-soldier serum and beating them senseless.
So the bad guys' plan is to do a false flag attack on the Klingons using a make-shift Starfleet ship that they built. I was having trouble hearing for parts of this episode, but somebody called it a Crossfield-class, but it looked more like a Miranda to me. The saucer looked kinda Crossfield, though.
M'Benga and Chapel get off the fake ship by blowing themselves out the airlock just in time before the Enterprise destroys it. Between seeing the Enterprise destroy the fake ship and getting drunk on bloodwine, the Klingons are pretty forgiving. Pelia decides to stay with the crew as the new chief engineer, since her race is nearly immortal and as such get bored easily, "boring" is not how one would describe life on the Enterprise.
Starfleet is pretty forgiving too, but as we find out, it's because Spock's actions may have saved the Federation having to fight a war on two fronts, as the Gorn have seemingly launched a warship across the border...
So, stuff I liked and stuff I didn't:
The Klingons look much improved since we last saw them on Discovery. The makeup looks more like it did on TNG, and the facial hair on the males seemed to be evoking the same sort they had on TOS. Still no acknowledgement of the Augment virus affected Klingons, though. The uniforms likewise seemed to pull a lot from TOS and TNG Klingon uniforms. The only Klingon ship we see is the D7.
The super-soldier serum came out of nowhere and was a huge WTF. All I could think of was this YouTube video that came out recently: LINK
Carol Kane's character is Lanthanite, a very long-lived species known for looking just like humans and hiding out on Earth for a while because of it. I don't know why we needed a new species for that. The El-Aurians were doing the same thing and would have worked just as well.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Because El-Aurians aren't supposed to be known for another 30 years or so but this is a different universe, so why the fuck not.
"Lanthanite"...like lanthanum? And lanthanides? Hm. Anyway, Carol Kane's a Highlander, okay.
Was trying to figure out who the "her" vould be, but all I could think of was Areel Shaw....unless they do like "surprise T'Pol cameo" or some shit.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Not occurred to me before, but it’s almost like they’re retconning the Gorn into being like those aliens in Andromeda (forget the name… oh, the Magog). Scary, eat people, even one ship is apparently bad news.
I presume the Klingon’s fake federation ship was cobbled together from other wrecked ships. It’s the most-likely explanation and explains the misidentification as a Crossfield, not sure how Crossfield-y the saucer was but if scanners picked up on the similarities I guess they’d provisionally identify as such. Although…
… It got me thinking. The Crossfield-class was a stupid design to begin with. What if what we just saw was the actual class, and the Glenn and the Discovery were refits, significant remodels to serve as the spore drive testbeds? I’m quite taken with this theory!
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Well, give me more Carol Kane.
Also: did they just canonize Highlander into Star Trek?
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote:but somebody called it a Crossfield-class
The woman filling in at Navigation -- who we've seen before -- says she "thinks it looks like a Crossfield" probably because she gets just a quick glimpse at it, but the saucer looks like it could've been ripped right off the USS Glenn.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Oh - just another thing. You're stealing a starship, and instead of pedal to the metal, you're discussing what "your go phrase" is?!?!?!
Uuuuuugghhhhhhh.
Oh, the Nav officer is Mitchell.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Chief Jenna Mitchell, yes. She was in S1 as well.
Posted by Capt. Kaiser (Member # 10511) on :
Saw this ep at a friends house and i quite enjoyed it though seems in this Discovery verse as i call it the Gorn might be more of a threat than they were in the Prime Universe which in a way is good and makes this Universe and series bit more exciting
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