Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2x08 - "Under the Cloak of War"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
He can come back for the musical episode!Great, now I'm imagining the whole cast as Trek aliens.
Although Len Cariou actually was one. He played (an alien masquerading as) Janeway's father on VOY.
This reminds me of the first season of TNG when the captain wore a hat so OBVIOUSLY they were re-doing A Piece of the Action.
It basically was a mash up episode:
The added parts with the silly superhero serum and M'Benga's "Shepherd Book"-past were also not that great. And IMO the weakest part was the Klingon guest actor (though I LOVED the Andorian spec-ops guy and the soldier kid!)
Still I liked the episode a lot. But not as much as I could have.
- "Nor the battle nur the strong" - Jake Sisko's Klingon war hospital experience
- "In the pale moonlights" battle scenes
- "Duet" - Kira & the war criminal's dance + the stabby ending
The added parts with the silly superhero serum and M'Benga's "Shepherd Book"-past were also not that great. And IMO the weakest part was the Klingon guest actor (though I LOVED the Andorian spec-ops guy and the soldier kid!)
Still I liked the episode a lot. But not as much as I could have.
10/10 I admit this was a hard one to watch with its depiction of war, but still a great episode. Much like certain episodes of Berman era Trek, this episode shows how outside the utopian world of the Federation core worlds, the real world still exists in Star Trek and sometimes its messy, and dirty, and people don't always act the way we wish they would. I really didn't like the Klingon ambassador when he first appeared, and the episode made me question if my view of Klingons had been colored by TOS, the TOS films, and Discovery with their typical depiction of Klingons as bad guys. Maybe this guy wasn't so bad, maybe I'm the problem. But no, he turned out to be the self-serving asshole I thought he was. Maybe this is a commentary on prejudging people, and then again maybe a cigar is just a cigar. I'll think about this one for awhile. Going into next week's episode is going to be jarring as hell.
For God's sake, could we try to develop some points of reference in entertainment, and fiction, and even life beyond trivial familiarity with old Star Trek episodes?
This was a war story. Don't you know that all of the stuff you're citing was lifted by the Trek people from other fiction, particularly old war movies?
"Even 'Duet?'"
"Especially 'Duet.'"
Do you actually believe that Perez sat around culling bits from thirty-year-old DS9 episodes to cobble into a teleplay/ In this case, not only is that vanishingly unlikely, it's insulting.
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Every time I think I've seen the best Babs can do, I'm wrong. An amazing story about the aftermath of war and the damage it does to everyone involved - even the monsters. As many people said, I got serious MASH vibes from the FOB flashbacks. I loved that they left the ending ambiguous.
I think what hit me the hardest was M'Benga giving the kid the "we have to fight" talk and then seeing him go off and die.
I think what hit me the hardest was M'Benga giving the kid the "we have to fight" talk and then seeing him go off and die.
This was more taking what "The Siege of AR-558" did and elevate it the next level with gruesomeness and moral complications. I don't see those other episodes in this at all except in the most superficial ways someone can compare two different episodes of the franchise.
I'm wondering if I should rewatch this episode. I was hesitant giving it a 6 mainly because the idea of a main character killing a guy and then lying to his captain about it didn't sit well with me. I think it was different with In the Pale Moonlight in that that is Garak's character and Sisko didn't actually kill the guy. M'Benga was a really fascinating character, but I almost feel like there was some character assassination going on. However, it was acted really well, and the flashbacks did give off DS9 flashback episodes (Specifically Ties of Blood and Water, which is a criminally underrated episode) vibe. I just don't know if I can get over the ending without having to see more and to see if there are in repercussions. There was really a lot of this episode I liked, but I wish it had been longer with a little more clear cut ending.
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Actually, yes.
This is the same problem Star Wars has: Old Star Wars was referencing Westerns, Samurai movies, WW2 movies, Flash Gordon serials...
Modern Star Wars is referencing.... old Star Wars.
Like A.I., it becomes less and less original the more it references itself, instead of outside work.
And yes, this was a problem for this episode.
The people running modern Trek have never made it a secret that DS9 was their favourite Trek series. And this episode very obviously was referencing DS9 mainly. The reference to outside work was second-degree.
Like "all those who wanders" was too close to an "Alien" rip-off, this episode was too close to a DS9 "best of".
Kind of obvious, in that it doesn't have any reference to modern war movies, and instead is referencing war movies writers in the 90s have seen, like Vietnam, Korean, WW2 or the 1st golf war. From an original work I'd expect to catch up to the post 9/11 world. But then it wouldn't be able to look so much like DS9. And that was there intention here.
And I say that as an absolute fan of SNW, and someone who still quite enjoyed this episode.
They have?
VOY and ENT seem to be getting a lot more love from the new streaming series than DS9 has.
I am not on Twitter so I really haven't followed writers opinions on the matter, but there have been writer interviews? Who is the big writer of this series anyway, kind of the Ronald Moore or Brannon Braga of the group. I should probably pay more attention to who writes these episodes, but isn't it a pretty big room?
It seems like the other big two writers who have really stood out have been Terry Matalas and Aaron Waltke. Maybe Culpepper and Osunsanmi on the Discovery side.
It seems like the other big two writers who have really stood out have been Terry Matalas and Aaron Waltke. Maybe Culpepper and Osunsanmi on the Discovery side.
I understand where you're coming from - but M'Benga never was the "traditional" doctor. He quite definitely killed some guys before (and that was already known before this episode).
The fight at the end? There'd be an investigation, the doctor relieved of duties until cleared... but by all legal means, he'd get away. There was a weapon. There was a fight. There's a witness.
Of course he'd be known as someone who stabbed a guy. And because the guys stabbed was quite high profile there would be a political dimension and fallout that should have been covered here (but wasn't).
But in the end I think it is in line with the character and how he was portrayed previously.
But he's the main Doctor on this series. Maybe we meet McCoy or Boyce (Is that his name?) later on, but in terms of this series and the main characters and what we know from main doctors on the other series, the timeline is kind of irrelevant.
No one really. Producer Henry Alonzo Meyers has the most credits. Some have written two episodes.
Yeah, the main doctor on this series is an ex-spec-ops guy who previously did covert operations and now stabbed a controversial figure during a brawl.
It's not exactly a perfect role model. But that's the character on the show, and he's quite consistent at that.
And it's not like he clearly intentionally murdered a guy (or assisted) or shot weapons of mass destruction at a civilian Maquis colony (cough Sisko), and that never had consequences either.
SNW is actually much more vanilla and rational in this regard.
To be fair I wish DS9 had actually followed up on Sisko's WMD stunt after that episode. It's one of the things that brings that episode down for me, even if the two actors are great in it.
Yeah, that's true... But then they get outplayed by a single crew who smuggled a bomb into the middle of their homeworld. lol
To misquote SF Debris: "I got nothing, sir. If I can't shoot it or hit it with a stick I have no idea."
