Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2x01 - "The Broken Circle"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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I still remember being interviewed years ago by this reporter at the New York Post who asserted that "the original series was famously non-violent, correct?"
Me: "Come again? Kirk got into a fist-fight every third episode, and all those redshirts didn't die of natural causes. Entire colonies and planets were wiped out, etc."
In my experience, folks often tend to compare the latest new TREK production to some idealized version of "Star Trek" that bears scant resemblance to the actual shows and movies of the past.
Maybe the reporter meant Star Search? 
Indeed, it can be argued that one of the pleasures of watching (or reading) a continuing series is to learn more about characters, their world, and even their pasts over time.
You're not supposed to know everything there is to know about the people and places right away, or even by the end of the first episode, season, novel, or origin story.
I loved how Picard was also made an archeologist off the cuff too (because the story in TNG S2 Contagion needed him to be one.)
I wouldn't say Picard's interest in archaeology is off the cuff. Yes, it was introduced in "Contagion", but he had an interest in history. So it isn't far-fetched to add in archaeology, too.
And what a great 10 seconds it was!
Jackson Roykirk was born to exterminate the entire Malurian race. What more does one need to add? 
Exactly.
It's like real life. No one knows everything about another person right off the bat. Over time, you learn things about friends, coworkers, family... everybody. For example: even now, I will learn something new about mom or my grandparents, and they've been gone for quite a while now. (Grandfather passed shortly before Christmas 1996, grandmother a week before Thanksgiving 2005.)
And the same applies to fictional characters: Watson did not get Holmes' entire backstory the first time they met in "A Study of Scarlet." Robert E. Howard's original "Conan the Barbarian" stories in Weird Tales magazine did not come complete with a lengthy appendix detailing Conan's entire life story as well as well the entire history and geography of the Hyborian Age. Magneto, the Marvel Comics villain, had been fighting the X-Men for more than a decade before a comic revealed that he was actually a Holocaust survivor. DAREDEVIL comics had been published for probably twenty years before it was revealed that he had a long-lost love named Elektra. Etc.
And as for that other franchise, Luke Skywalker's mom didn't even get a name until the Prequel Trilogy, decades after the original movies.
Not every character or universe arrives with a comprehensive Memory Alpha entry already attached. They get fleshed out over time as more and more stories accumulate.
And as for that other franchise, Luke Skywalker's mom didn't even get a name until the Prequel Trilogy, decades after the original movies.
Not every character or universe arrives with a comprehensive Memory Alpha entry already attached. They get fleshed out over time as more and more stories accumulate.
I suppose it's possible that this drug showing up is supposed to be set-up for some future storyline, but I didn't read it that way at all. It just struck me as adding in character detail about M'Benga and to some degree Chapel.
It reveals something signficant about the Doctor and his wartime experiences that he and Chapel both view the drug with some revulsion, but he admit that he carries it with him all the time. That's some trauma, there. Dude's sleeping with a gun.
Likewise, folks online are speculating that it represents some secret research they engaged in - the suggestion is that this stuff is some kind of innovation or breakthrough or secret weapon or similar Big Fucking Deal.
I'd rather that were turned around: assume this kind of drugging was commonplace during the war. One of M'Benga's routine assignments was dispensing it to combat troops. He used it; he kept some for "emergencies."
It reveals something signficant about the Doctor and his wartime experiences that he and Chapel both view the drug with some revulsion, but he admit that he carries it with him all the time. That's some trauma, there. Dude's sleeping with a gun.
Likewise, folks online are speculating that it represents some secret research they engaged in - the suggestion is that this stuff is some kind of innovation or breakthrough or secret weapon or similar Big Fucking Deal.
I'd rather that were turned around: assume this kind of drugging was commonplace during the war. One of M'Benga's routine assignments was dispensing it to combat troops. He used it; he kept some for "emergencies."
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To go a bit further off topic, how did Star Wars fans deal with that between 1977 and 1999? Was there tons of fan speculation?
They read books. And then Lucas pulled the rug out from under them.
People complain about Pike not being in this episode and from the preview clip i saw for next week it seems like his mission takes place at the same time as the events of the Season Premiere So that's basically why he's absent for this entire episode.
... and probably despised that it was necessary.
I can testify that my college SF club spent the years between EMPIRE and JEDI feverishly speculating about whether Vader was really Luke's dad, who the "other hope" was, and what the heck the Clone Wars were.
And, yeah, the fact that we didn't actually have names for Luke's parents was inconvenient when it came to debating these issues.
I do like how the brutal nature of the serum sort of fits in with what we knew about M'Benga in TOS. Willing to use extreme physical means to stimulate somebody (as when he repeatedly smacked Spock as hard as he could to accelerate his recovery from his life-threatening wound). M'Benga is willing to get rough and ready in 2259 or 2260 and he's still up for a good smack or five in 2267 and 2268.
Pure speculation on my part: I wonder if M'Benga eventually takes a sabbatical on Vulcan in part to gain greater control over his own turbulent emotions and PTSD from the war? Perhaps while he was studying Vulcan physiology, he was also studying Vulcan meditative techniques and practices to regain his own emotional equilibrium?
Just a possibility that occurred to me while watching the ep.
That's actually a brilliant theory!
Perhaps it is what Scotty drinks it with the Kelvan in By Any Other Name.