Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2x08 - "Under the Cloak of War"

[Noname Given]

What? Klingon blood is both Pink and Red. The Pink blood in the the redundant Klingon circulatory system.

 

[Bgt]

I liked the premise of this one but I dunno, at the end something felt off.
I agree with another commenter here that this should have been a two-parter.
I also do not like the immunity the Doctor gets. First with his daughter putting in danger the whole crew, now getting free with murder, I mean why? Cause he has PTSD?

I also do not enjoy Pike much anymore, he is more like cooking in space for his baddies, instead of commanding a ship. Was the actor engaged with other projects? cause you get the feeling he has less and less appearance time or even important time in the episodes.

This has been a weird season so far. They wrote it like it is a 20+ episodes one instead of 10.
Too fragmented, you can't have 10 epis only and dedicated/focus in one-two characters in each. We need more ensemble episodes or bigger number of them.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Tom Selleck is an alien?!?

Great, now I'm imagining the whole cast as Trek aliens.

Although Len Cariou actually was one. He played (an alien masquerading as) Janeway's father on VOY.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Was the actor engaged with other projects?

Raising a new born.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

#ColtsAStraightShooter

Took me awhile before I got that.

 

[Nerys Myk]

What? Klingon blood is both Pink and Red. The Pink blood in the the redundant Klingon circulatory system.

They have redundant cardiovascular systems. One for red and one for pink. Klingons bodies are very crowded with bones, organs, veins and arteries. That's why most medical procedures are tough.

 

[Kraig]

Who said anything about an open mind? Star Trek should not do a damn musical episode. No TV show should be doing musical episodes unless they're a show specifically about musical stuff (like Glee) or literally a musical show (like Galavant). The fact that Joss Whedon once did a good musical episode in a non-musical show does not justify any other show doing it, because outside of that 1 episode they are all terrible.

We just got an amazing episode about peoples experience in war and how they deal with it, and they're going to follow it up with fucking High School Musical in space. Its a gigantic embarrassment to the entire franchise to do this. There is not another episode in the entire franchise that approaches being this wrong for Star Trek, not even the damn freaky friday or fantasy land episodes from this show's first season, and they were really bad themselves.

Anyway this show overall has really dragged itself to the bottom, I now expect bad episodes from SNW and get a nice surprise when they're occasionally good, so I'm fine with just skipping next week's episode so that I don't give myself a rage induced heart attack.

So, not a fan of Steven Bochco's Cop Rock?

While there has not been a "musical episode" per se, there have certainly been many instances of signing in various episodes.

Off the top of my head:
1) Uhura in "Charlie X"
2) Lt. Riley in "The Naked Time"
3) Uhura in TFF (not Nichols, though)
4) Picard, Data, Worf in "Insurrection"
5) Klingons at various points in TNG/DS9
6) All the DS9 Vic Fontaine stuff.
7) Seven in "Someone to Watch Over Me"
8) The Doctor in "Virtuoso"
9) Una in Short Treks
10) Agnes in Picard S2
11) Uhura in "Children of the Comet"

I don't mind music or singing in an episode, but like kirk55555, I just don't want characters breaking out in song when speaking their lines. To me it seems to be unnatural behavior. It was used as a joke in Keeping Up Appearances, when Hyacinth Bucket was trying to get her neighbor Emmet's attention and a part in the church play, The Boyfriend. It terrified Emmet though. At least Hyacinth and the rest of the cast wasn't singing for the whole episode.

 

[drt]

Eh, it's just the latest variation of space anomaly weirdness hijinks, over the years they've done almost everything else possible.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

So, not a fan of Steven Bochco's Cop Rock?

"Has the jury reached a verdict? ... HIT IT!"

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[JonnyQuest037]

Oh but he couldn't because biobed 2 was broken.

Irony!

Alas, like so much of SNW, it feels like a blatant reuse of old Trek storylines and tropes: this was kind of a mixture of ST VI: TUC, The Defector, Duet, The Siege of AR558 mixed with Its Only a Paper Moon, and even The Wounded…and not a fraction as good as any of them.

After 60+ years of Star Trek, I'd imagine it's almost impossible to come up with a Trek story that doesn't repeat elements of previous Trek stories in some way, shape, or form.

I liked the subtle nod to M'Benga's daughter being suspended inside a transporter buffer when he and Chapel are discussing how to keep the battlefield transporters at maximum capacity during combat. Wait, you can store somebody's pattern inside the buffer long enough to bring other patients in? That's amazing!

I guess the TNG crew was pretty dumb to be impressed by Scotty's trick in "Relics" at this point.

Hell, at this point, Chapel would need a lobotomy to be the same character Majel played.

Brain and Brain, what is Brain?

I'm good with the TOS M'Benga being the younger brother of Joseph. It allows SNW to go their own direction with Joseph M'Benga and his ultimate fate.

Shades of Smallville deciding that their Jimmy Olsen was actually the older brother of the classic Jimmy Olsen after they killed the character off.

 

[Kraig]

"Has the jury reached a verdict? ... HIT IT!"

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The like is for the post, but in no way endorses Cop Rock.

 

[Greg Cox]

Eh, it's just the latest variation of space anomaly weirdness hijinks, over the years they've done almost everything else possible.

Yep. I'm sure they'll be some wacky technobabble explanation. Maybe god-like aliens auditioning humanity?

 

[JirinPanthosa]

You're using that phrase wrong.

He had no reason to kill him other than revenge. He was upset that he was taking credit for the killings that weighed on his soul in order to portray himself as a reformed peacemaker. He wasn't in a position where he was forced to kill him in self defense, or where killing him would save other lives like in Pale Moonlight. How would you describe it?

 

[Jedi Marso]

Has his daughter even been mentioned since the fairy tale episode?

Of course not- episodic Trek is great at this sort of amnesia.

But we the viewers know that pain is there.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Yep. I'm sure they'll be some wacky technobabble explanation. Maybe god-like aliens auditioning humanity?

Galactic Idol

 

[Jedi Marso]

I also do not enjoy Pike much anymore, he is more like cooking in space for his baddies, instead of commanding a ship. Was the actor engaged with other projects? cause you get the feeling he has less and less appearance time or even important time in the episodes.

I've noticed this as well this season. As often as not, Pike seems to be there for light comedy, with the blank-look responses and half-sentence replies and reactions to what is happening around him. It's one thing to take a softer or 'boy-scout' approach to command, but there does need to be a bit of steel in there somewhere. He's the ship's captain, not the chef.

Of course, the Lotus Eater episode was the exception that proves this rule, this season.

 

[Mudd]

They wrote it like it is a 20+ episodes one instead of 10.
Too fragmented, you can't have 10 epis only and dedicated/focus in one-two characters in each. We need more ensemble episodes or bigger number of them.

None of this is true.

"I'd rather have had more ensemble episodes" would have been fine.

 

[jackoverfull]

I always rate the episodes immediately after I am finished watching, to document my unfiltered reaction, and I gave this a 9.

However I am now wondering if I should have rated it this high.

I like my Star Trek main characters to be role models, as a child I looked up to Kirk and Picard as role models. This episode completely destroyed the character of M'benga, there is not really any way for the character to recover from this. As others have pointed out this was no manslaughter. M'Benga brought the knife to his offices before the Klingon even arrived, and he knew that everyone would think that the knife belonged to the Klingon. This was an extra legal execution by a skilled assassin who knew how to cover his tracks.

Some are comparing this episode to in the Pale Moonlight. There is an important distinction however. Sisko could not do what was needed to bring the Romulans into the war. He had a mental block that prevented him from going to far. It was Garak who did the dirty work. Yes, Sisko knew he would go of script, but he himself was not capable of pulling the trigger.

also, Sisko and Garak did it to fulfill an higher goal, questionable as it was, M’Benga seems to do it just to have revenge (“make them pay”, to quote Chapel).

They say that you should never, ever meet your heroes.

There's probably a bit of truth in that.

I still hope to meet mine, though!

I’ve met some of my heroes, they lived up to their reputation!

Klingon blood is also pink AND red in the very same scene of one episode of DSC. But hey, don't let that stand in a way of a good rant.

Also on lower decks, definitely intentionally.

 

[Mudd]

I just don't want characters breaking out in song when speaking their lines.

That's exactly what I want to see. I love musical theater.

Yep. I'm sure they'll be some wacky technobabble explanation. Maybe god-like aliens auditioning humanity?

It's actually a little more novel than that, for Star Trek. There's a clip up. Basically, they make an "oops!" with a research project of their own.

Ordinarily, this sort of mistake requires a famous Federation scientist to come aboard and fuck things up.

 

[Rahul]

I watched it. It was okay.

SNW continues its run of doing a "best of" of all previous Trek. After doing the TNG court rooms episode, the TOS medieval planet, now it's a DS9 war episode.

I don't know. I like a lot of what the episode did, and what it tried, and it was by all means a good episode with a great performance of the main cast (the ambassador... not so much).
But it was also a bit too unintentional goofy and shallow at times, to truly make it a classic.
I'd give it a 7/10.