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

Fun fact, I misremembered their ages and thought SNW was just playing the character older and TOS younger and the actors were actually about the same age, but I checked so I wouldn't look stupid, and found it's not just superficial and rewrote the post.

So, you can pretend I made the same point in a way you wouldn't shoot down immediately, based solely on the implausibility that M'Benga goes from sad middle-aged man at the top of his field to callow, second-banana youth over ten years.

 

M'BENGA: The patient's condition has not improved. Months have become days and have become hours. Every minute has become invaluable. She has so little time left.

M'Benga can't store her in the transporter buffer indefinitely. He has to materialize her from time to time, which subtracts from her remaining life expectancy. M'Benga's running out of time to find a cure. He's desperate. If he passes up this opportunity, Rukiya will most likely die before he finds a cure.

 

So how long has it been since we saw opulent draperies lining the walls of a starship in Trek?

Christina Chong and Alison Pill really need to release albums. I'd buy them.

I just love the team of M'Benga and Hemmer acting together to resolve a crisis. Sheer joy to watch.

Hemmer's warning to the others not to look into the cutting beam for fear of blindness was also a joy. Because it's the first time I've ever noticed that writers acknowledged these powerful emanations of light so destructive to matter could actually burn out your retinas with their wavelength. (Which is why you should never look into the beam of a blue laser without eye protection).

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has had numerous predecessors to iron out all the kinks in storytelling and presentation and is all the better for it.

 

The episode doesn't make it clear after the entity cured her if she would have gone back to the enterprise would it have restarted the clock. Also MBenga got more medical information a few eps ago to find a possible cure. I really enjoyed this episode and its my only real issue with it.

 

I think you need to rewatch that scene.
It certainly did indicate that.

 

Poor M'Benga let Rukiya go every time he activated the transporter sliders. His anguish was palpable. More time could have been devoted to show other stages of his anticipatory grief, but the series logistics ruled that out. Suffice it to say, he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He chose hope. And happily, the Alien of the Week was benevolent. But lonely. The bureaucratic mentality is not the only constant in the universe--so too is loneliness...

 

If you were in M'Benga's shoes, would you dare take the chance that the clock would've been reset? What if you were wrong?
Worst case scenario: The clock isn't reset. She effectively has hours, if not minutes, and the chances of finding a cure in time are slim and grim. What's YOUR decision, Doctor?

 

I can see M'Benga leaving the ship to intern in the Vulcan ward and then coming back when he feels his time there is served and/or he gets homesick for the Enterprise, or if new CMO Mark Piper or McCoy request he return for his expertise with Vulcans.

 

I enjoyed this one. It's fun and funny and touching all at once. I wish Hemmer hadn't lost memory of the events, but it was really enjoyable to see him and M'Benga teaming up.

Mount is hilarious, and Chong is both adorable and really sexy. I wish I was the dog.

 

There's still (potentially) Doctor Piper before McCoy.

 

Hemmer is the unsung hero of the show. I hope he gets more time to shine in the final two episodes of the season.

 

Another reason why I dislike numeral rating systems. I gave it an 8 because it's one of my favourite episodes of the season, and for you an 8 is somewhat disappointing.

Seemed like a full-assed one to me.

 

Not gonna lie, as a single father to a young daughter this episode punched me right in the feels.

Aside from the bittersweet ending, in which I could totally imagine myself in M'Bengas shoes the episode was delightfully silly with Hemmer quickly becoming a favourite character of mine.

La'an as the Princess was a highlight too!!

 

I enjoyed the episode but was sorry to see them end Rukiya’s story so conveniently with a godlike alien story.

 

I'm not angry at this episode, I normally applaud alternative attempts at storytelling.

But don't do that again.

I think my main issue is that episodes like this should come much later in a run. When you know the characters and changing them radically is thus fun. But we barely know them. It feels just too soon.

I'm also not happy with the ending narrative. Firstly that they want to get rid of this story of his child already. Then this pseudo-religious claptrap of just whisking up into the sky and all is fine. I mean his kid could have just been taken by an evil entity. And he's like "Okay cya"

Its first misstep. However blessedly light on Chapel and some of the actors did at least have a bit of fun. M'Benga explaining the technobabble mid-episode however, the actor looked like he wanted the ground to open up and eat him.

 

It's going somewhere? Are they bringing back Benny Russell? Cool!

 

Well, they can't all be winners. Does anything happen at the end of this episode that we'll need to know going forward?

 

Oh, nothing really.
Except quite possibly the exact reason M'Benga eventually leaves his position as the ships CMO.

 

M'Benga's daughter is now an energy being living in a nebula that had spontaneously formed itself into a mind.