Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x07 - "What Is Starfleet?"

[Detached Nacelle]

"I'm a soldier, not a diplomat." -- James T. Kirk.

It's funny. Even today, some folks still talk as though "Star Trek" = TNG, but honestly, at this point TNG is a more of an outlier when it comes to aggressively pushing the whole "evolved" human utopia business to the extreme. And, in its defense, even TNG eventually allowed for a more complicated, realistic portrait of human nature in episodes like "The Drumhead" and "The Wounded."

The way I see it, you can't really explore the human condition by declaring that humanity has "evolved" beyond all the uglier, messier parts of humanity.

Heck, the whole point of "The Enemy Within" was that Kirk needed both his positive and negative qualities to be whole. He couldn't just discard his "evil" half.

Humans within the Federation probably do believe the whole evolved sensibilities thing and aside from a few border skirmishes with the Cardassian and Tzenkethi TNG was during a time of complacent peace and Picard I don't think fought in the border wars so he had this boy scout mentality.

Humans will never have their shit together, as Quark pointed out take away their comforts and they are as vicious as the most bloodthirsty Klingon.

As you pointed out episodes like the Drumhead (a personal favourite) chipped away at the cornier declarations of utopia. So TNG starts to come across less like humanity is evolved and flawless and more humanity is trying really hard to champion its ideal image of itself but then reality hits back and things like schools and children on starships stop being a thing. Barring the occasional child born in space with nowhere else to go of course.

 

[JoeZhang]

Why was the Federation/Starfleet helping or doing anything but watching? They knew the thing they were moving was being called a "weapon" right? Even not knowing it was a living being, why would they transport weapons (or anything but food and med supplies) through war zones?

Well they know upfront or they discover it and just carry on regardless...

 

[Kraig]

A flagship is where a flag officer sets up shop I believe in real life (correct me if I'm wrong). In which case the only times the Enterprise qualifies is when Admiral Kirk was in command for the first 3 TOS movies, and that time Shelby took command of the F before she got shot up by Borg. I suppose Admiral Janeway running around in Prodigy counts too.

That is correct the flag officer and his associated staff. The writers, without a Navy background, get flagship confused with capital ship all the time. I just let it slide, since it is fiction. A flagship means the ship is carrying the Admiral of a group of ships travelling together. In actual military navies, the Admiral is a flag officer and the ship carrying the Admiral is the flagship. To confuse the issue even more, some navies have ceremonial flagships, with no admiral aboard. For the United States, the ceremonial flagship is the sailing ship USS Constitution, commissioned in the late 1700s and still afloat today.

Also, in TNG episode Redemption II, Picard is given permission by Admiral Shanthi to assemble a fleet to stop Romulan Incursions on the Klingon / Romulan border, Picard is filling the position as an actual flag officer. The Admiral should have given Picard the temporary rank of at least Commodore (USN would call it a Rear Admiral LH) to let the fleet know who is in charge of the operation, in order to have a clear chain-of-command. Another occurrence where it would be the flagship of the group, as defined by most navies.

 

[Eddie Roth]

Wow, another winner! The show has rescued itself from merely being good, to an upward trend to excellent again like previous seasons.

As of late, I've been seeing more people posting on social media saying the Federation is imperialist, or not democratic, that Starfleet is an enforcement arm.

It is wonderful to question yourself. Nice going Star Trek. This is where checks and balances come in, and do we get a stasifactory answer?

I think we do. We get the normal line: Exploration force that doubles as a military one in time of need. It's a "combined service" as Kirk said in TOS., but more importantly, we get a personal answer that connects with the questioner: Yes, Starfleet is people, and what a nicely acted and evocative group of people this is to engage our emotions so. The ending was moving.

I would also like to compliment the episode on an excellent use of A and B stories that the prev era often fumbled.

Thats a 9 out of 10 SNW.

Keep it up!

Completely agree with this assessment. Me, I wasn't entirely sure whether the specific plot (which was wonderfully classic Trek certainly) fit the aim of the episode all that well, though. By which I mean, I wonder if they couldn't have gotten even more mileage for their argument from a situation in which the right and wrong of it had been far more murky. What the alien race did with the creature was in essence an offensive version of what the Bandi did to the Farpoint creature. As we knew nothing about the war here and therefore had no sympathies either way, it seemed a bit facile.

That said, this is a very good episode to introduce a newcomer to what ST is all about. Not formally, as this was an experimental style, but in terms of the underlying philosophy. I'm very happy that among all the frivolous comedies and gimmicky concept episodes of late, there is still such solid and classic Trek material in the mix.

 

[JoeZhang]

As we knew nothing about the war here and therefore had no sympathies either way, it seemed a bit facile.

I could not work out if we were suppose to think that it was a terrible documentary *in-universe* because so much contextual information was missing or that was doing for a range of other reasons.

(The episode was written before 8th Oct but some people have wondered if it was edited because of current geo-politic situation in Middle East - I think that is unknowable).

 

[Eddie Roth]

I could not work out if we were suppose to think that it was a terrible documentary *in-universe* because so much contextual information was missing or that was doing for a range of other reasons.

(The episode was written before 8th Oct but some people have wondered if it was edited because of current geo-politic situation in Middle East - I think that is unknowable).

That's kind of my point. I mean who knows if there was originally more to it, but there's not even enough in here to draw any parallels to real-world conflicts. Nor is there a need to make such a reference. The issue is that the info about that war was so vague and lost among all the exposition that I had trouble keeping apart what side we're helping here, and whether they were the winning or the losing side, and what planet we were going to, and so forth. It was at the same time too vague and too convoluted. This aspect of this otherwise excellent episode would have profitted from this conflict having been established earlier.

 

[JoeZhang]

That's kind of my point. I mean who knows if there was originally more to it, but there's not even enough in here to draw any parallels to real-world conflicts.

The nearest we get is that very asymmetrical casualty list at the start - which is very pointed but never really followed up...

 

[Starflight]

Quite liked this, although it did start to get way too cloying at the very end. Only thing that I didn't like was Pike's vague "uhh we'll help you out some other way" promise to the aliens before threatening them - obviously their experimentation on the creature was hideous, but with the death toll we saw at the start, Starfleet better have something better to offer as a replacement other than Pike vaguely suggesting he might bother to defend them, maybe.

The episode's meant to be dead serious but I was laughing a lot in the first ten minutes, there's probably a great episode to be had in some hack documentary maker doing the laziest hit piece possible on a starship.

 

[JoeZhang]

I see in various places it claimed this is the shortest every episode of SNW and shorter than any other modern (Live action) Trek - is this true?

 

[Tosk]

I see in various places it claimed this is the shortest every episode of SNW and shorter than any other modern (Live action) Trek - is this true?

Without checking, I doubt it. I think Battle at the Binary Stars was very short.

Edit:
What is Starfleet? - 40mins. No Previously On.
Battle at the Binary Stars - 37mins. Not Counting Previously On.
Vaulting Ambition - 36mins. Not Counting Previously On.

 

[Mudd]

That is correct the flag officer and his associated staff. The writers, without a Navy background, get flagship confused with capital ship all the time. I just let it slide, since it is fiction. A flagship means the ship is carrying the Admiral of a group of ships travelling together. In actual military navies, the Admiral is a flag officer and the ship carrying the Admiral is the flagship. To confuse the issue even more, some navies have ceremonial flagships, with no admiral aboard. For the United States, the ceremonial flagship is the sailing ship USS Constitution, commissioned in the late 1700s and still afloat today.

Also, in TNG episode Redemption II, Picard is given permission by Admiral Shanthi to assemble a fleet to stop Romulan Incursions on the Klingon / Romulan border, Picard is filling the position as an actual flag officer. The Admiral should have given Picard the temporary rank of at least Commodore (USN would call it a Rear Admiral LH) to let the fleet know who is in charge of the operation, in order to have a clear chain-of-command. Another occurrence where it would be the flagship of the group, as defined by most navies.

Funnily enough, @Maurice and I were talking yesterday afternoon , before I saw the episode, about how much Trek has always gotten wrong about the Navy and naval parlance and practice. GR and Coon were both WWII Army veterans...

 

[Dar70]

That is a complete failure of understanding. This is resoundingly a theme of Trek. I'm surprised there was even one negative review. People will come around on this one.

I don't think it was a failure. I see people on both sides. Some calling it the best episode of Trek ever which I find rather silly. Considering some of the epic episodes we had back in the Berman era. Then we have the other side which said it's a failure ..which is ridiculous as well. It wasn't a bad episode. It was ok. Not great...but Ok. Trek has been running for decades now. Even though they have had different casts and even settings, the premise is always the same and tbh there is not much they can do that is unique or surprising anymore. After almost a 1000 episodes it's heyday is far behind it imo.

 

[Markonian]

That is a complete failure of understanding. This is resoundingly a theme of Trek. I'm surprised there was even one negative review. People will come around on this one.

Perhaps I come around on this one on a future rewatch. Knowing what I’ll walk into.

But right now I cannot forgive what we were missold a documentary masquerading as an episode. I’m sure the interviews had salient Trek Lore in it but I couldn’t bear watching people talk directly into a camera.

Plus, Jessie Gender lays out clearly how the staging fails the Trek theme.

 

[Mudd]

I don't think it was a failure. I see people on both sides. Some calling it the best episode of Trek ever which I find rather silly.

One of the five best episodes of SNW.

I dunno about Roddenberry/Berman Trek. I've watched the handful of really good episodes that I remember so many times that I stopped almost twenty years ago, so my memories are far from fresh.

But did I like "What Is Starfleet?" more than BOBW Part 1 or "Yesterday's Enterprise" or Name-the-episode-of- DS9? Yes, I did.

 

[Mudd]

The documentary format may have had stunt value when M*A*S*H used it, but it's been a long time since perfectly recreating a real documentary was the point of it.

As a narrative technique it has a built-in irony that brings a fresh perspective to a familiar tale.

Trek ordinairily employs the omniscient camera as a reliable narrator.

But the documentary POV purports to be an objective capture of events while being entirely subjective in all respects.

Of course it's obvious that Beto has a thesis that he wants to support. But when Uhura or Spock speaks to the camera, for the first time we see them not as they "are," but as they believe themselves to be and wish to be known.

Pelia was, thankfully, absent from this one. We got her hammy take on how not to wind up in the DaVinci recycle in back in the SNW Mummy episode.

 

[Okmyx]

Regarding the apparent size of the jikaru when it crashed into the star, it likely burned up long before it reached that star.

Did the jikaru singing sound like the whale song from the voyage home to anybody else? Or is it just me?

 

[Starkers]

Took me a little while to warm up to the premise but that was very good.

 

[The Wormhole]

Did the jikaru singing sound like the whale song from the voyage home to anybody else? Or is it just me?

I too thought that sounded like whale song. I'm sure tie-in material is already drawing up connections to the whale probe from TVH...

 

[Airmandan]

I feel this would have worked far better if it had been a regular episode and then after the episode you get the “documentary”. Similar to the short treks that they had going for a while.

 

[Dar70]

One of the five best episodes of SNW.

I dunno about Roddenberry/Berman Trek. I've watched the handful of really good episodes that I remember so many times that I stopped almost twenty years ago, so my memories are far from fresh.

But did I like "What Is Starfleet?" more than BOBW Part 1 or "Yesterday's Enterprise" or Name-the-episode-of- DS9? Yes, I did.

That's cool and all. But I haven't seen anything since DS9 has ended that could top some of my favorites from that show. The Visitor for example is just so damn good..