Pike is hopelessly optimistic. And he's never been to war.
Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2x08 - "Under the Cloak of War"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
The story doesn't tell us whether it's better or not. It leaves us feeling uncomfortable over whether or not M'Benga made the right choice, which is why it feels like a Deep Space Nine episode since it's the only Trek that consistently didn't tell you what to think at the end of "message" episodes - that felt more comfortable throwing out an "issue" and letting you mull over it and feel uncomfortable.
M'Benga was given believable motivations to murder a man in cold blood. That didn't mean he was right to do so. And indeed, the episode suggests in its last shot that the murder did nothing. No one will ever know other than M'Benga the true crimes the ambassador committed, and M'Benga gets no sense of resolution from doing it - he's just as broken as ever.
I really liked this episode - I'd give this a 9 - same score as last week's even though the episodes couldn't be more different. What I was wondering (and get everyone's thoughts on) is whether you think Dak'Rah would have let M'Benga reveal the truth to the public.
I think they are not as cynical but they are as ambitious. Like the Vulcans there is an attitude of we know our past, and we know we can become better. So, if someone says "I want to become better" then they are willing to make efforts to work with that, even if some officers don't agree. Look at Nimbus III, Gorkon, the allowance of Koloth to make use of facilities. All overtures against a power that Kirk describes as expansionist, cruel, and barbaric.
I think were the struggle comes is simply in the real, day to day, interactions.
Indeed, yes. That's kind of the appeal of SNW is that the world merely exists.
Wow! A solid 9!
Excellent episode that could well have been a DS9 episode. It covered many of the same themes, war, and morally grey areas. We haven't seen a ST episode like this one in quite awhile! And what a change of tone from the previous episode. That's the nice side of episodic television, the variety.
It also reminded me a lot of M*A*S*H! Dealt with a forward hospital base, familiar scenes of triage and being forced to decide who you can save and who you can't, horrific surgery scenes, and saving patients just to have them sent out to die. Instead of income choppers, they had income transports. They even did Hawkeye's trick of massaging the heart when all else fails. Of course, all wars will sadly have those types of scenes.
The twist was nice. I figured they were setting something up but wasn't sure what exactly.
Solid episode but I thought they wobbled on the ending. The conversations at the end were too on the noise about what they wanted you to debate. And obscuring the fight scene detracted, pulled their punch. If M'Benga killed the guy outright, just do that. It just adds to the moral greyness.
Clearly, they wanted viewers to debate whether Starfleet using the Klingon ambassador was the right thing or not. But we can't answer that question because we don't know the history well enough to understand the effects. So, I won't even attempt evaluating the moral correctness of the ambassador or M'Benga.
Excellent episode that could well have been a DS9 episode. It covered many of the same themes, war, and morally grey areas. We haven't seen a ST episode like this one in quite awhile! And what a change of tone from the previous episode. That's the nice side of episodic television, the variety.
It also reminded me a lot of M*A*S*H! Dealt with a forward hospital base, familiar scenes of triage and being forced to decide who you can save and who you can't, horrific surgery scenes, and saving patients just to have them sent out to die. Instead of income choppers, they had income transports. They even did Hawkeye's trick of massaging the heart when all else fails. Of course, all wars will sadly have those types of scenes.
The twist was nice. I figured they were setting something up but wasn't sure what exactly.
Solid episode but I thought they wobbled on the ending. The conversations at the end were too on the noise about what they wanted you to debate. And obscuring the fight scene detracted, pulled their punch. If M'Benga killed the guy outright, just do that. It just adds to the moral greyness.
Clearly, they wanted viewers to debate whether Starfleet using the Klingon ambassador was the right thing or not. But we can't answer that question because we don't know the history well enough to understand the effects. So, I won't even attempt evaluating the moral correctness of the ambassador or M'Benga.
Yea, but I feel like him asking M'Benga and Chapel to attend dinner with Dak'Rah was especially insensitive. But of course I have the benefit of seeing, via the flashbacks, what they went through.
Yeah, that and when they wouldn't say how long Pike and M'Benga knew each other.
Oh of course, but in the "world" of Star Trek, it's hard not to see the parallels.
Toronto-based production after all. lol"Commander Buck Martinez"? Whoever wrote this episode must be a Toronto Blue Jays fan.
I guess one thing I don't get is where the battle was being fought. They're slaughtering Federation citizens, fine, but apparently there are Klingon civilians who are also being slaughtered because they're not soldiers?
But assuming this is a Federation planet... why would you even invade? Just starve the planet to death with a siege. I haven't seen Discovery S1 since it aired, but I seem to remember the Federation being on the brink of loss which is why they were willing to commit mass genocide by destroying the Klingon homeworld in order to end the war.
The size of the Federation fleet is so random. In Picard S3,
we get the impression it's pretty tiny with maybe a couple hundred ships?
In Picard S1, they had problems evacuating the Romulan homeworld with the ships they had, if I'm remembering correctly. It's not really clear what logistical capability the Federation actually has... but presumably it'd be worse in the TOS era.
I agree, but also don't want to veer too off topic with the history talk.
If it was a Federation planet, I would get why the Federation soldiers would just run at the enemy like a meat grinder instead of using transporter bombs or kamikaze shuttlecraft or whatever tech they had. I'm not sure why the Klingons would bother, other than the long standing tradition of making Klingons extremely stupid when it comes to battle because of their honor code.
Someone on another forum mentioned that this felt like an episode of MASH, which makes sense. I don't have a problem with field hospitals - iirc, the Jake Sisko episode where everyone thinks he's a hero takes place in a field hospital. I just think the premise of having traditional wars when there is the equivalent of magic feels strange.
It's really not a big deal to me, despite writing paragraphs about it. lol
It's like how in Star Wars they had to write a line about why they don't just warp starships into the Empire in order to stop them, despite the fact that it proved to be an effective tactic in The Last Jedi. They can't do it because there'd be no story for Rise of the Skywalker. lol
What an amazing episode. This is a great example of what SNW can do at its best. One of the reasons I get so angry at the horrible comedy/shenanigans episodes is because more serious episodes are what SNW is best at, but (especially this season) the show barely does them, its been almost all stupid comedy BS (not counting the excellent LD crossover), which the shows writers are generally horrible at.
This episode single handedly justified DSC's whole klingon war arc for me, and really sold me on both M'Benga and even Chapel as characters. The show can definitely still do great episodes, but the people making it are just obsessed with comedy while simultaneously being horrible at writing it.
So of course after all this praise next week's episode is possibly the worst episode in the entire Star Trek franchise, because this show can't have more then one or two good episodes in a row without reminding you that the people in charge just really want to be making a cringey sitcom, but presumably got stuck on a Star Trek show instead.
This episode single handedly justified DSC's whole klingon war arc for me, and really sold me on both M'Benga and even Chapel as characters. The show can definitely still do great episodes, but the people making it are just obsessed with comedy while simultaneously being horrible at writing it.
So of course after all this praise next week's episode is possibly the worst episode in the entire Star Trek franchise, because this show can't have more then one or two good episodes in a row without reminding you that the people in charge just really want to be making a cringey sitcom, but presumably got stuck on a Star Trek show instead.
I am fascinated to see what the reaction will be to this episode.
For me, everything that I have said about previous episodes and found lacking in them was corrected in this.
A truly remarkable 50 mins.
By my reckoning the best episode of SNW, and the best episode of Trek since it returned to our screens with Discovery.
Taking some of the themes raised in DS9 during the dominion war and yet elevating them, whilst at the same time allowing for real character growth synced to the the plot of the episode.
A great character study, a great (if that is the right adjective to use in this situation) study of PTSD, and an interesting discussion over the nature of justice and forgiveness.
When you take an actor like Robert Wisdom who was so utterly remarkable in The Wire, you need serious material to allow him to do justice to the part, and boy was this to be found here. Tremendous performance.
As was the acting of Babs Olusanmokun, in what must the be the episode that has given him the most to do, he simply nailed it. Tremendous credit to Jess Bush as well, in what was much more than a supporting role.
I have a feeling that the threads that were started here will lead to the breakdown in Chapels relationship with Spock.
I hope that the final two episodes of the season continue with such quality.
It will be interesting to watch and judge the season as a whole once its has completed its run.
For me, everything that I have said about previous episodes and found lacking in them was corrected in this.
A truly remarkable 50 mins.
By my reckoning the best episode of SNW, and the best episode of Trek since it returned to our screens with Discovery.
Taking some of the themes raised in DS9 during the dominion war and yet elevating them, whilst at the same time allowing for real character growth synced to the the plot of the episode.
A great character study, a great (if that is the right adjective to use in this situation) study of PTSD, and an interesting discussion over the nature of justice and forgiveness.
When you take an actor like Robert Wisdom who was so utterly remarkable in The Wire, you need serious material to allow him to do justice to the part, and boy was this to be found here. Tremendous performance.
As was the acting of Babs Olusanmokun, in what must the be the episode that has given him the most to do, he simply nailed it. Tremendous credit to Jess Bush as well, in what was much more than a supporting role.
I have a feeling that the threads that were started here will lead to the breakdown in Chapels relationship with Spock.
I hope that the final two episodes of the season continue with such quality.
It will be interesting to watch and judge the season as a whole once its has completed its run.
Definitely agree that SNW hasn't shied away from that. But I do think it was odd how nonplussed Pike was. "Ah, there might be an inquiry . . ." but basically no big deal. We'll see. Thought it was a great episode though! But the ending was a little soft in my opinion.
I don't know. I've worked with enough different people that receiving horrible news doesn't always warrant an immediate reaction. It sometimes is a moment of just taking in information.
This is before the Klingon High Council so all he'd have to be is born to the right House.
I'd agree. Using this Ambassador was the Federations official policy. M'Benga single handedly shut that policy down. And that's on top of the fact that he killed the guy.I don’t see how anyone walks away with their career intact. It’s a massive embarrassment for the Federation and a stain on the Enterprise for an ambassador to be stabbed to death on their ship..by a Starfleet officer, under any circumstances.
I'm wondering if that plot thread becomes a thing in the 3rd season similar to how Una's trial started in the 1st season but wasn't dealt with until the 2nd? Although, they still have two more episodes this season.
I didn't know you could time travel.
So TNG? One of the Co-Writers next week wrote 1x03, 1x06 and 2x07
D7s in the trailers.
The Klingon High Council exists now. We saw it in Discovery.
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I thought this was an outstanding, absorbing episode and everything I wish SNW would be every week. They need to go this direction for season 3 and dispense with the comedy episodes. If that were to happen, SNW could easily become top tier TNG - DS9 calibre Trek imo. The show has the potential to reach that level.
Babs Olusanmokun was exceptional. This was the best acting I've seen in Star Trek since Stewart in TNG. Jess Bush is also incredible as ever. It was great to see her do something other than pine for Spock. It was great to see Spock actually act like Spock. I loved seeing Una asserting herself as the XO and wish it would happen much more. I also really liked Ortegas in this episode.
It was a brilliant episode, brilliantly directed, the war scenes were unnerving, the smooth transitions between the timelines were so well done. It was great all round.
Babs Olusanmokun was exceptional. This was the best acting I've seen in Star Trek since Stewart in TNG. Jess Bush is also incredible as ever. It was great to see her do something other than pine for Spock. It was great to see Spock actually act like Spock. I loved seeing Una asserting herself as the XO and wish it would happen much more. I also really liked Ortegas in this episode.
It was a brilliant episode, brilliantly directed, the war scenes were unnerving, the smooth transitions between the timelines were so well done. It was great all round.
The real question is whether Dah was sincere in his "repentence" (or at least believed he was) or it was all a long con. After all, pretending to be the good guy probably did help a bunch of people in the long run.
It might be one of those contested planets where both UFP & Klingon Civilians occupied it in the past and started growing their colonies.
Kind of like how in the Cardassian Neutral zone, you have Cardassian civilian colonists & UFP colonists.
There might not have been "Space Superiority", ergo control of the Space around it might have been contested.
The size of the Federation fleet is so random. In Picard S3,Maybe a couple hundred of ships available, but I doubt that's all of UFP's fleet.we get the impression it's pretty tiny with maybe a couple hundred ships?
Remember, during the pandemic, we had global logistics shortages because containers were in the wrong place and staffing was short-hand
It doesn't take much to screw up a logistics supply chain.
Well, making the Wallenberg class vessels in mass was something they were attempting, but that got screwed up by the Synth Rebellion.
OKI agree, but also don't want to veer too off topic with the history talk.
Klingons just seem to love fighting. They live for the fight, the battle, the combat.
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
=D
Remember, kamikaze attacks are a "Last Ditch" weapon. They aren't the first option in combat.
It's incredibly wasteful of resources to warp your vessel into something.
I just wanted to say, I keep remembering this, and it was a great idea that should've been in the episode and probably would've made it more thematically coherent if M'Benga was partially responsible for turning young Lance from a wide-eyed idealist who was overwhelmed and horrified by the war to a committed soldier ready to do whatever it took, knowing what he'd eventually do. Like, maybe Rah was really trying to make things better, maybe he was just moving where the wind took him to save his own skin, but Gorkon was the real deal and definitely did not deserve to be murdered, which would help the temper the whole Ortegas/M'Benga/Chapel were right about Klingons thing, every single one is rotten, and they're all proud murderers or lying about being murderers.
