Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x08 - "The Elysian Kingdom"

Odd. TOS went off the rails for its final season. It didn't go as crazy as Lost in Space with veggies, but it came pretty close.

 

Yeah, this was my first real 'meh' of the season/series so far, and I gave it a 5. I understand what they were going for, but Olusanmokun's performance here felt very flat to me, and the other crew filling the book's character roles seemed awkward rather than humorous.

To me, at least, it felt like a premature ending to the M'Benga's daughter's storyline, something I'd assumed would be a multi-season arc. What should have been a very emotional conclusion was watered-down with the daughter's reappearance to assure him that he'd made the right decision.

I might just not have been in the right head space when I watched the episode. I'll give it a re-watch later and see if it strikes me differently.

 

It counted as much as any.

What are you counting, anyway?

 

They gave them enough. I got it. I suppose it depends on how much you want to think about what you watch.

 

Considering the Q and the Metrons, etc. I don't think it's a problem.

 

I wasn't referring to his accent.... but to the damn whispering

 

Exactly so.

I've been watching Trek forever; I don't need or want them to spoon-feed me this trivia.

 

That's how he speaks, go listen to an interview. He's not whispering.

 

They needed to make it clear she was imminently going to die and therefore sending her away was her only chance. And yes, having her come back immediately to reassure him was a misstep.
Not terrible overall.

 

Yeah, but until now SNW has done episodic storytelling well without the reset - the stories/episodes are episodic, but until now character continuity has been maintained. It is almost like for this one episode they forgot about that part, outside of M'Benga's storyline. It seems so "out of character" for the show, I wonder if they didn't have some different plot point in earlier drafts that required them to all forget the events of the episode, but that got removed upon rewrites.

When I was talking Shore Leave vs Masks, I was speaking more of the fun/entertaining level of the episode. None, of these three episodes have much character development for the main cast. We might have to look to VOY's "Memorial" or something like that for an episode where the characters really learned something.

Oh, I thought about some of these briefly in the time available in the episode. But the larger point is the show didn't do much (anything?) to show that they thought about them, and they certainly didn't give any time within the episode to actually considering them. Considering these options (especially the ones where the ship is stranded in the nebula so that his daughter survives) might have been a reason that the original episode draft required all the other crew to not remember/not be more actively involved (if my supposition is correct that there was originally a story point about that). It would be harder to have M'Benga seriously consider sacrificing the ship if his crew are all aware and/or remember that he actively considered leaving them stuck there in exchange for his daughter. It's easier for him if he is the only one to contribute to the decision.

 

Exactly, yet now? I am going to assume that it is based on memory rather than a rewatch.

 

I have no issue understanding him.

Sheesh. It's amazing how little tolerance some Trek fans can still have towards those not quite in the comfortable majority.

It's no more of a reset than any other previous episode. In fact there's some permanent change to M'Benga's character. Furthermore, doesn't it make more sense that Pike and the others not be aware of what's going on, rather than being "And I must scream" puppets during this whole time?

 

Yeah. One's a little more horrifying than I would prefer in my Star Trek.

 

It is more of a reset than any other SNW. From just an importance to the overall storyline perspective, if Una didn't know about the daughter in the transporter buffer, this episode could have ended with M'Benga not telling anyone anything and it would have made no difference to anyone else. Outside of an episode like "Year of Hell" or "Course: Oblivion" this is as reset-y as you can get.

As for other impacts: at the very minimum Hemmer has his memory wiped for no reason. For the rest of the crew, yeah, the way it is structured now, they weren't really "awake" to act and have memories anyway, so for that measure they weren't erased. But the ship's logs/recording are wiped for no stated or implied reason. That is definitely a classic Voyager reset.

 

Wouldn't it be fair to wait and see how M'Benga continues to grow before declaring a reset? Voyager's resets literally wiped away consequences from deep emotional pain that was never spoken of again. Does anyone think SNW will do this?

 

I haven't rewatched since the HD versions came out. It's been a while.

 

Reset? Why? Because the crew doesn't remember the parts they played in Debra and Rukiya's little play? They were essentially puppets with Debra and Rukiya pulling the strings. The characters were not fully fleshed people , just archetypes We're not talking the Inner Light here. I'm sure the crew had a pretty good laugh when M'Benga told them what actually happened.

The strum and drang over "reset" buttons has become a joke.

 

Except that it's not a reset at all.

 

Well it took me multiple tries but I finally finished it. I kindly gave it a 3.

Since most of the episodes have been really good, it’s understandable to get a dud, especially in the first season.

 

Yeah, no resets in this episode.

Fans are relying on tired old tropes for their criticisms these days; there's nothing new or original about them and they ignore important parts of the long history of the franchise. If J.J. Abrams ever gets tired of producing Trek, he'd be temperamentally well-suited to critiquing it online.