Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x05 - "Through the Lens of Time"

[Starflight]

I actually like that they reimagine how the future looks based on real-world technology today - in 2025, it would seem odd if a show set in a technologically-advanced 23rd century didn't depict the ability to regrow organs.

The soul of Star Trek isn't in a specific technical depiction of the future; it's in the idea of a future that's better than today. Pike's wheelchair made sense in 1966, the VISOR made sense in 1987, the ability to regrow eyes entirely makes similar sense in 2025. To insist that new shows ardently stick to TOS-level tech would start to look like retrofuturism, which is definitely not the intent of the setting, nor the mood it's intended to convey to viewers.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Just because the technology is more advanced and more things are possible doesn't mean there aren't good reasons why something is not being done (often). You can handwave outdated tech by saying that that the bugs haven't all been worked out, or people are still hesitant to adopt it for various reasons.

 

[fireproof78]

Because it contradicts all of TNG. TNG got the idea from the animated series because at the time the animated series was not Canon so they used the idea. Then some "bright" person at Paramount decided to say the AS is now canon even though it really isn't. Just another can of worms......these guys could learn a thing or two from Star Wars productions. They ain't perfect but they sure as hell try to make things reasonably fit. (Although everyone needs to stop putting cartoons as part of the Canon d r these franchises)

Star Wars fits poorly, even with Lucas.


TAS fits with TOS perfectly and that's all it needed to do.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I actually like that they reimagine how the future looks based on real-world technology today - in 2025, it would seem odd if a show set in a technologically-advanced 23rd century didn't depict the ability to regrow organs.

The soul of Star Trek isn't in a specific technical depiction of the future; it's in the idea of a future that's better than today. Pike's wheelchair made sense in 1966, the VISOR made sense in 1987, the ability to regrow eyes entirely makes similar sense in 2025. To insist that new shows ardently stick to TOS-level tech would start to look like retrofuturism, which is definitely not the intent of the setting, nor the mood it's intended to convey to viewers.

Pike's future of becoming a Paraplegic is one that I want to seriously avoid.

I don't mind if that forces SNW & the Discovery-verse into a Parallel Time-Line that you can also call "Prime 2.0" or whatever suffix you want to add onto it.

Christopher Pike, IMO, deserves a better future than ending up becoming a parapelegic bound to the chair.

The one aspect I really liked about the JJ-Abrams verse was that Pike was only Wheel Chair bound, but other wise was normal.

I just want Anson Mount's Christopher Pike to end up better than what the OG Christopher Pike ended up suffering through.

 

[fireproof78]

Characters don't really deserve much. Otherwise I could argue O'Brien deserved far better but drama.

 

[eschaton]

The technology was new to Scotty in TNG.

Didn't Generations directly contradict Relics, as in that episode, Scotty seemed to have no idea what happened to Kirk?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Characters don't really deserve much. Otherwise I could argue O'Brien deserved far better but drama.

O'Brien is the "Most Important Man in StarFleet History" according to future Historians.

 

[Tuskin38]

The technology was new to Scotty in TNG.

the dialogue does not support this.

 

[Ovation]

Star Trek is not a period piece. There is no need to treat it as such.

 

[Fateor]

I'm still waiting for a rational explanation of the enormous turbolift interiors. No one has come up with it. Maybe the interiors are actual holodeck turbolift interiors....

Technically there is one from Enterprise with the the Timeship that used what was probably a Warp Bubble to make it's interior bigger then it's exterior.

That said, the real answer here is that it was a complete and utter production side failure because they wanted a cool fight scene and didn't think of anything beyond that.

The eye regeneration thing was a bit OTT when you consider Spock’s blindness in Operation Armageddon. I think a comment such as, the Optic nerves are undamaged, might have lowered the miracle level.

Spock's a rare Human/Vulcan hybrid, medical technology that works on one species wouldn't necessary work on a hybrid.

 

[fireproof78]

O'Brien is the "Most Important Man in StarFleet History" according to future Historians.

That justifies his suffering?

 

[FredH]

www.grammar.com says


I can find several other references saying the same thing as grammar.com

Ah, sweet vindication!

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

That justifies his suffering?

Tell that to the DS9 Writers who chose to put that on him.

 

[fireproof78]

Tell that to the DS9 Writers who chose to put that on him.

I blame the TNG writers who made him hold his family hostage while possessed. That's some dark, tortuous, drama.

 

[Michael]

I’m glad to see the majority of people seem to have liked this one, but for whatever reason it didn’t really work for me. And if this trend continues this might just shape up to be my least favorite season of the show yet. With half the season already behind us, I only liked episode one, loved episode three, and didn’t really enjoy the other three.

What I did like were some of the horror elements with Gamble (whose name was finally uttered after he was already halfway dead), but overall there were just too many moments that left me kind of baffled. What was the point of the scene where they discuss whether or not to take a couple of steps outside the ruin through the still open door visible behind them to report back to the ship, have them decide to not do that, only to then have them step outside after all in the very next scene! Uhm, what?

Or what was the whole concept of them existing in the same room but different planes of existence (or whatever) all about that didn’t really lead anywhere? And you’d think the writers would use the team being split up (in what seemed like very deliberate groups) to bring some of the conflicts to the fore, but no, there wasn’t really anything.

In the end I keep wondering what this entire ruin was even about. I know, they hypothesize that it’s some sort of prison. But why then does it have to be some magical labyrinth? Why the whole effect preceding the cause idea? Why did the ruin accept Chapel’s blood? Why did the native get vaporized when the others were fine to leave later on? I know, I know, they don’t have to tell us absolutely everything. But it sure seems like the writers didn’t really have an idea either. Plus, with some of the dialog feeling so clunky, there were moment where I thought I was watching an episode of Discovery.

By the way, I don’t recall, but was the shot from the trailer, where we see all those structures inside the ruin move and collapse (?) in the episode as well? Or was that from a later episode where they revisit the place?

 

[Starflight]

Yeah this one ultimately fell flat for me too, I liked the idea of the ruin but it felt like there was no real story attached. The hopefully-not-Pah-Wraiths are a setup for some future episode (or even arc), so the plot of this one was basically just "the away team goes in a ruin, stands there for a while, then leaves, and Gamble gets screwed, tune in next time to see what the evil entities do and if Batel goes all Gorn-y".

It felt like SNW trying to mimic some common Star Trek plots - mysterious alien ruin with a secret, crew member possessed - but as was the case in the holodeck episode, they recreated the form and structure of those stories but without the comparatively tight plotting and "mystery -> twist -> resolution -> denouement" arc you'd get in older Trek. If you transplanted this exact script into TOS or TNG and removed the modern production values, it'd feel really odd and empty, there's no moral or intellectual (for want of a less pretentious word) dimension to the story, nor does it really have enough momentum to work as a straightforward adventure/horror thing, as comparable stories like Power Play or Contagion do.

I agree about the ruin's puzzle being a missed opportunity; even if the ruin itself was kind of boring and they couldn't think of an interesting solution to the puzzle, they could have got some character work out of trapping people in pairs.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Why did the native get vaporized when the others were fine to leave later on?

My guess:

You know that Running Away is the InterGalactic sign of a guilty soul.

If you suddenly need to run away, you're guilty or afraid of something.

The Facility's automated defense system must've picked up on that and used that as the reason to zap him.

If he was innocent or harmless, he wouldn't be trying to run away in a hurry.

 

[Tosk]

And if this trend continues this might just shape up to be my least favorite season of the show yet. With half the season already behind us, I only liked episode one, loved episode three, and didn’t really enjoy the other three.

I have been fighting a feeling of disappointment the last few weeks. I'm not ready to let that feeling take hold...but I'm grasping at mediocre eps right now as a highlight, which is worrying.

It'd be hilarious if the Vulcan-gimmick ep turns out to be great despite my months-long trepidation.

 

[Sketcher]

Christopher Pike, IMO, deserves a better future than ending up becoming a parapelegic bound to the chair.

I do believe this is resolved in The Menagerie. Is it in illusion of sorts? Yes. Does it provide Pike solace, also yes.

It's also where I feel the SNW finale will follow up on, showing that for Pike's decade of apprehension over the accident, there is a bit of a happy ending for him.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I do believe this is resolved in The Menagerie. Is it in illusion of sorts? Yes. Does it provide Pike solace, also yes.

It's also where I feel the SNW finale will follow up on, showing that for Pike's decade of apprehension over the accident, there is a bit of a happy ending for him.

That's not the type of happy ending I want to see.

I want him to have a normal life; even if he has to have a Wheel Chair, or walk with a limp, or walk with a cane, or have Cybernetic replacement limbs.

Something better then being bound to the chair and requiring Illusions to have a happy ending.