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Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x04 - "Memento Mori"

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I suppose I could add to the discussion by asserting Star Trek's long-time policy of "academic" (for lack of better) English as the vernacular of the would-be better future is (much like its similar policy of classical music only) inherently classist if not racist.

But that takes effort, and I'm lazy.
 
SAndrews10 said:
This literally just made me spit laugh all over my phone screen and wall. That’s soooooo true. They did that far too often.
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The worst offender was "The Ultimate Computer". There, after hundredths of crew members are killed by the Enterprise's weapons and ships were lost, Kirk was all smiles and giggles. Here Pike was (rightfully) somber after the death of his subordinates.

Spot the differences.
 
captainmkb said:
eventually we're going to have to get to the bottom of the whole "can't fire a torpedo while cloaked" thing and damned if this episode didn't replicate my thoughts on the matter from when i was young - why not just open the door and let a bomb slide out?

with all the talk of how cloaking fields are power consuming, i think the implication was possibly that opening the door and having the full launch procedure would just be a no-go for power reasons? bomb bay would solve - powerless launches

anyway, i'm glad they did it. classic problem solving.
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The original thing with the cloaking device is that both it and the plasma weapon used by the Romulan ship were huge power guzzlers. That reasoning fell out the window when in TSFS and TNG the cloaked enemy used regular weapons.

Pubert said:
Obviously paper is safer to keep less eyes from seeing it.
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You think an actual object lying about is safer from prying eyes than a password-encrypted file viewable on a single monitor?

Richard S. Ta said:
Kirk didn't care when Redshirts died.
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And, to be fair, neither did we.
 
I liked the fact that this ep was inspired on part by The Balance of Terror. Basically the crew trying to figure out how to evade the gorn. The writing is pretty tight and we again get a lot of story and characterization in just an hour. So much better that the serialized trek.
 
Pubert said:
I liked the fact that this ep was inspired on part by The Balance of Terror. Basically the crew trying to figure out how to evade the gorn. The writing is pretty tight and we again get a lot of story and characterization in just an hour. So much better that the serialized trek.
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It was also quite nice that they didn't destroy the Gorn. They just found a way to survive, and run away. Nicely done.
 
I'm curious about Una... the number one. Why she doesn't has many heroic moment in this series, unless the episode tell specially about her (episode 3)? It feel that she has the similar level of appearance as Lt. Kyle, the transporter officer. And maybe Hammer, the Chief Engineer.

At the same time, La'an has more appearance & heroic moment than the "number one".

Is it because the actress (Romijin) has other obligation that she must attend, so she has only limited time with Strange New World?

I feel weird, because Una is actually one of the three principle characters that we have known since Discovery season 2. And unlike when she was in Discovery, She's no longer has a lot of sarcasm. Nor a strong personality that make me like her in Discovery. She become... well, side character that just be there for the sake of appearance.
 
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Belz... said:
It was also quite nice that they didn't destroy the Gorn. They just found a way to survive, and run away. Nicely done.
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They were responsible for the destruction of three Gorn vessels, and they would have happily destroyed the fourth if they were capable, so I'm not clear what you mean by "they didn't destroy the Gorn."
 
Sisko_is_my_captain said:
They were responsible for the destruction of three Gorn vessels, and they would have happily destroyed the fourth if they were capable, so I'm not clear what you mean by "they didn't destroy the Gorn."
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You just agree that they didn't destroy the big Gorn ship and you're not clear about what I meant when I said they "didn't destroy the Gorn"?

I mean, quite clearly, that the script has them escape instead of wiping out the opponent, a nice change from what stories like this usually do.
 
I wish I had more time to delve into the discussion here, but I just wanted to at least pop in and say that I've been really enjoying the show so far and thought this one was the strongest episode yet. Almost all of the characters are interesting and/or likable (didn't warm up to La'an so far; I think it might be due to the actress's somewhat wooden performance), the writing feels on point and clever enough, the stories seem like modern takes on classic tropes, and the production design – sets, costumes, makeup, music and effects – is top-notch, as I've kinda come to expect from the newer shows.

I'm surprised how easy it feels to get back into this world and accept these as versions of characters I've known for so long. I've watched “Arena” right after this, just to see how it tracks with “Memento Mori”, and it struck me how Strange New Worlds adds texture to this random episode, because now I can suddenly imagine Spock and Uhura actually knowing each other for quite some time or how the Gorn are this mysterious force even a decade later. Watching Nimoy-Spock now it feels totally natural to imagine Peck-Spock as a younger, somewhat less self-controlled version of him.

“Memento Mori” kind of feels like taking some of Trek's greatest hits – like “Balance of Terror”, “The Corbomite Meneuver”, “Arena”, TNG's “Disaster”, DS9's “Starship Down” and The Wrath of Khan – and smushing it together to create a new episode. Which probably sounds terrible in theory, but the execution thankfully still feels fresh and not like some cobbled-together mess. It has a clear beginning, middle and end, with a narrative theme, and only now I realize how much I've been missing that. This is not to say the episode is without its flaws: the whole sequence of Spock and La'an taking the Galileo out for a spin felt kind of superfluous, the reveal of the Gorn morse code seemed stupid, and I thought some of the storylines (Hemmer and Uhura, Una in sickbay) deserved more of a coda/resolution. But at the same time I can confidently say that this episode felt more exciting than anything Discovery and Picard had to offer in their combined six seasons of episodes. My wife even asked how this could be by the same people producing the other shows.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to where all this goes. They are off to a surprisingly good start so far. :)
 
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Three Gorn ships dead, and their parent-ship surviving to report the destruction of a Starfleet ship to whomever back "home"...
 
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