Spoilers Strange New Worlds 1x02 - "Children of The Comet"

[Lord Garth]

Got to the end of it. The plot didn't grab me, the characterization did. I'll split the difference and call it a 7.

 

[XCV330]

A very enjoyable episode. My bar is going to be higher for this series than for discovery or Picard. That's how it goes. There will be 9's and 10's i suspect. I'll give this an 8.

random thoughts:

I always liked the break-room singing/lute playing scene between Uhura and Spock in TOS. This has some interesting lead up to it.

Pike is rapidly becoming my favorite captain. He has folks over to his quarters for dinner, and its not the stuffy uncomfortable dinners of Archer. In some ways has has some similarities to the Sisko. Both are fated beings, though Sisko does not know exactly how his fate will play out (in fairness, neither does Pike, fully). Both seem to enjoy cooking and have a sense of being more attached to their home on Earth than the others. Both are persons able to bend rules as it suits them for their own understanding of greater good. Archer, for instance, would have let this world die. And last week's for that matter.

It's cool having a new Aenar character.

I thought they would just reuse the spacesuit designs from Disco but they find a way to actually incorporate elements of the goofy TOS spacesuits into the design that somehow looked good.

 

[Quinton]

Easy 8, just like the premiere. Silver stuff.

 

[NCC-73515]

He's gonna look at the lives he's gonna save many times. They'll have Spock and Pike be aware of what's gonna happen, Pike's gonna take painkillers before it happens, Spock plans ahead to take him to Talos.

They should've tried singing Slim Whitman, that would've dsetroyed the comet

I really enjoyed Spock laughing after taking the advice to heart about bad things. Fascinating.

Sometimes you have to bow to the absurd!

Is the crew complement official? Or is it just from The Cage?

I was going off Pike's comments in the TOS pilot. Can't remember if it was 230, or 203, though.

203 in Cage and in Brother

That's actually false. If a shockwave reaches your ears you will definitely hear it. Ears don't require air. They just require some sort of medium to hit the drum.

no medium in space.

I immediately stopped the episode when they showed the suits to go look up photos of these. Sure, they're not totally faithful, but they are a respectful update, and that's all I want. I don't need Big E to look like it did in 1966. But I also don't need them carelessly redesigning everything 'just because'. This felt like the right balance. A lot of the sets and props have so far!

The suits have used these TOS elements in Disco already

Well that's because she needs a lot of space for that gigantic turbolift system...

The Enterprise is also empty inside (Q&A)

I can too. Inside and out, it's gorgeous. The only thing that bugs me a little is the size of Pike's cabin! Wow, that's massive! Ortega even went out of her way to say it was a small ship. I mean, his cabin looks gorgeous but . . .

I can get over that. Love everything else! Looking forward to seeing engineering at some point, beyond the quick glimpses in the previews.

Perhaps Pike told April to turn the mess hall into his personal quarters if he wants him back in the chair

Hemmer didn't get to do much but he made a good first impression with his starting dialogue. I still wish the antennae moved like they did in ENT but I guess having more stiff makeup ties in more directly with how the related Andorians looked in TOS and the TOS Movies.

So true. ENT had the perfect design. But it has to be ridged and rigid now, because "it's 2022"!

 

[Vlasko]

The ship makes an impression. Just not sure if it's a good one yet. The rooms are large and industrial. Like a big hospital or something. It doesn't have that "warm" comforting appeal of the TNG set with the engine hum where you watch Picard sit down and enjoy a cup of earl grey. Maybe it will grow on me. The Captain's cabin.... seems so open.

 

[XCV330]

The ship makes an impression. Just not sure if it's a good one yet. The rooms are large and industrial. Like a big hospital or something. It doesn't have that "warm" comforting appeal of the TNG set with the engine hum where you watch Picard sit down and enjoy a cup of earl grey. Maybe it will grow on me. The Captain's cabin.... seems so open.

It's funny how everyone will have differing opinions. TOS Enterprise was my favorite ship(edit.. fixed typo) because of how crowded and business-like everything looked. They recycled the same motifs and colors.

I never liked the Enterprise-D interiors. They looked they were flying an 80's Hyatt Regency. But I get why people do like them. I just didn't. The SNW interiors are to me a good mix of TOS/ TOS Movie Era and Kelvin Verse interiors. They're not afraid of lighting, anymore, nor a color pallet that isn't hide-mistakes-dark, reactor-leak-blue, or Your-Dad's-88-Ford-Taurus Interior Beige.

"I like this ship. It's exciting" -Scotty

 

[Saumyajit]

Rated 6. It gets the mood of Trek very well - humour, crew interactions, touch of philosophy.

Unfortunately the story is quite predictable. We have seen multiple variations of this before. I am hoping with just 10 episodes per season the writers can think of fresher storylines. Because they are getting so many other things just right.

 

[Captain Jollydark]

Okay. So, I really enjoyed this episode. Hit a lot of the right notes for a second outing. And so pretty to look at. But then I started thinking (as one does) that I wish they hadn't given Uhura a tragic back-story. Coming off the heels of last week with the awfulness of La'an's backstory, it just seemed like - I don't know, an unnecessary motivation? It's kind of like the trope they give male action heroes - his wife and child were murdered and now it's personal etc - only the lady version.

As we may remember from our own youths (or me anyway), young people can be uncertain about what they want to do with their lives without having lost both parents in a shuttle accident. If Number One has a tragic back-story next week I might be a little annoyed. If Chapel has a similar tragic backstory (not Roger Korby related) then it will definitely seem like a unwelcome trend. And a bit lazy.

I'll get over it though because STAR TREK STAR TREK STAR TREK WHEEEEE!!!!!

 

[StarMan]

No one makes it to command level without at least a 50% untimely death ratio in their family.

 

[Saumyajit]

By the way who else got Paradise Syndrome vibes when Sam Kirk touched that thing inside the comet?

 

[Kraig]

By the way who else got Paradise Syndrome vibes when Sam Kirk touched that thing inside the comet?

I know of a discussion on page 7 of this thread about the Preservers, I'm sure there are others.

 

[Trekker4747]

By the way who else got Paradise Syndrome vibes when Sam Kirk touched that thing inside the comet?

I was getting vibes of Wesley, Picard and the cargo shuttle captain from "Final Mission" on the environmentally hostile planet and the fountain protected by a hostile force-field.

 

[XCV330]

No one makes it to command level without at least a 50% untimely death ratio in their family.

strengthening my hypothesis that in the near-utopia of the Federation, the only people they can get to join Starfleet are screw-ups and people with traumatic pasts that can't fit in back on their delightful home worlds.* And the ones that can't get into Starfleet, wash out at the Academy, or are too individual to even want to try end up in the colonies.

*and 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation etc members that just stay in the family business

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I wonder what the range of the Telepathic Communication between Spock & Hemmer extends to?

Can Spock & Hemmer use Telepathy to communicate when one is on the Bridge, and the other is in Engineering?

Even in a crisis where regular comms are down?

Or does Spock need line of sight with Hemmer for his Telepathy to work?

 

[jackoverfull]

A common theme in these two first episodes is the prime directive, Pike and crew seem to love playing god saving planets from destruction. Is this a good thing? I think so… but something must happen to knock Pike down a peg or two with all his interfering or surely the Federation would have adapted the Prime Directive as a result of his successes? He might make a mistake at some point in the future which proves that general order number one and the PD must be adhered to? Let’s wait and see…

not necessarily: Kirk diverted asteroids to save worlds as well.

 

[Timofnine]

not necessarily: Kirk diverted asteroids to save worlds as well.

I think that diverting an asteroid is an acceptable breach of the prime directive as long as the planet’s population don’t actually see it happening? If they did see it, then they might start believing in UFO’s or even start worshipping the Starship as a god? This would effect the populations natural societal development even if in a small way this breaching the Prime Directive. I guess that there would have to be some exceptions in the interest of saving a world though, the crew couldn’t watch the destruction of a planet without intervening, they should have some morals.

 

[thribs]

One of those “kids” Pike is destined to save is going to be an ancestor of a known legacy character. I’m calling it.

 

[thribs]

not necessarily: Kirk diverted asteroids to save worlds as well.

Kirk saw a general Order One as a guideline. Picard saw it as a strict rule. That’s one of the differences that differentiates those two people. If Kirk could save someone who was about to die, he would. Picard may not depending on the circumstances.

 

[jackoverfull]

thought this episode was good, love the battle scenes, doesn't seem like they often show the evasive maneuvers they call out so i thought that was interesting to see

True. Unfortunately I feel many of them looked very videogamey.

There was a scene in this episode that really jumped out. It was the scene where they were on the comet and when Uhura starts to sing, the comet lights up and brings in a beautiful melody. That scene reminded me of the scene in Prodigy with the Crystals and just how great a job they did with the effects

thought exactly the same!

 

[jackoverfull]

Nope.

Let's move on.

Could you explain how was what was done was within the tempered system? I just did a crash course on Wikipedia and "Just Intonation" (which is the pure musical ratio system without tempering), uses the same terminology for note ratios, major Third etc.

Tuning based on Pythagorean intervals sounds decidedly unpleasant to our current ears.

There are many tuning systems just in Western 12-note music. Middle Eastern music has more notes (sort of where the cracks are on the piano) than Western. And East Asian (and I think most Native American) is pentatonic, which sounds like the five black notes pn pianos. And I’ll bet diff cultures within those systems tune em differently.

Heck, just how we pitch things is higher in US symphonic music than 100 years ago. Modern orchestras or pianos would sound overall too sharp and maybe strident to their ears. Sorry to go on. It’s a show primarily for Westerners, eh? Maybe I’m wrong in that count, but, yeah this was an oversimplification for Trek tv. Eps w music usually have that.

thanks. Since you provided explanation I’ll post an example I’ve always loved!

This piece sounds unpleasant (or at least REALLY “wrong”) to our hears, but it would have been pleasant to someone living in Europe in the late 1500s.
Notice how different the keyboard is, also, with separated flat and sharps: in fact one of the reasons we got to today’s systems (note the plural) is to make playing music easier by compromising on intonation.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

I’ll also add that major third intervals were not considered consonant, pleasant, or in fact used at all (in favour of fourths) until we got to the beginning of our current harmonic system.