And I can't even catch that one damn fly that's been buzzing around my kitchen for the last hour!
That whole bit where he said "nowhere!" reminded me of his face when Kirk asked him "WHERE?!" in The Trouble with Tribbles
Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x05 - "Through the Lens of Time"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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That whole bit where he said "nowhere!" reminded me of his face when Kirk asked him "WHERE?!" in The Trouble with Tribbles
The eye thing doesn't bother me at all. We're already researching ways to use stem cells to regrow retinas, and plenty of other species (lots of fish, birds, and reptiles) can essentially regenerate an entire eye. I presume IRL we'll be able to regrow an eye within like 1-2 generations, so acting like it's impossible in the 23rd century seems anachronistic.
Geordi's eyes weren't regrown in TNG because he was intended as representation for the disabled community. Indeed, he was named after a prominent Trekkie quadriplegic named George La Forge. Acting as if all people who would be disabled would be "cured" from birth would violate the IDIC that Roddenberry came to embrace. So Trek exists in a strange liminal space where most injuries can be solved no problem, but disabled people still exist.
Geordi's eyes weren't regrown in TNG because he was intended as representation for the disabled community. Indeed, he was named after a prominent Trekkie quadriplegic named George La Forge. Acting as if all people who would be disabled would be "cured" from birth would violate the IDIC that Roddenberry came to embrace. So Trek exists in a strange liminal space where most injuries can be solved no problem, but disabled people still exist.
9
IMO a great episode and I like that it wasn't what a lot of TOS fans thought it would be - a direct prequel to TOS S1 What Are Little Girls Made Of; and yeah, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact it wasn't.
The Good:
Everything on the 1701 that happened after Gamble's accident and injury. That was very well done and creepy in a very entertaining way. I loved the manner in which they depicted the malevolent entity taking control, and what it did. We also got a nice and classic TOS era redshirt death when Gamble broke out of the Brig.
LOVED the confrontation between proto-Gorn Batel and the entity. It seems the Gorn have a genetic memory of these beings and have fought them before some time in the ancient past.
I also liked that they did have Gamble die at the end. Not because I dislike the character, or the actor; far from it. I just like that they introduced a good character for a short period (3 episodes total) - gave the audience enough time and a little background to decide if they like/dislike him - and then he dies as a result of a Landing party mission showing again that service aboard a Federation Star Fleet vessel CAN BE and often IS dangerous and deadly.
^^^
This is something that (with the exception of later seasons of DS9 and S3 and S$ of ENT) I feel Berman era Trek SORELY lacked. Aside from a few of the TNG cliffhangers; life aboard the 1701-D seemed like being a working member on a Cruise ship.
The way Pela and Scotty quickly contained and beam the malevolent entity away. That was quick and fun to watch.
The Meh:
The stuff in the alien lab just didn't make a lot of sense. It seemed they put the puzzle element in just to HAVE a plot complication for them to solve. I'm not a fan of Technobabble, and yes while the elements were interesting on their own - nothing explained WHY the aliens who built and operated the lab would split up a group in the manner it did. They also didn't do anything to explain (if this WAS a prison) WHY the Blood Sample Lock system would allow a COMPLETELY unknown alien into the facility in the first place. And yes you could argue that the 'party split' was a defense mechanism - but since we saw the lab vaporize the Blue alien one has to wonder why the place didn't just vaporize them all - and also why it let them exit safely. <--- Some more on those aspects would have worked better for me.
The fact that they left the entity in the Transporter Buffer and didn't use the Transporter to scatter its energy far and wide (like Kirk will later do in TOS S2 The Wolf In The Fold); or both Pela and Scotty come up with another way to kill it. It's already killed two 1701 crewmembers so yeah, I doubt any of them would have a moral issue - especially after Pela's little speech on what vides she got from the entity. (Yes, they want to set up a 'Ghost in the machine' scenario and evidenced by the computer glitch displayed at the end - but even they should have enough experience at this point with malevolent non-corporeal entities to go: "So...Best way to kill it, just to be sure?..."
But I guess I'll reserve final judgement until I see the resolution to this new over arching plot complication.
But overall, yeah, this is the kind of thing SNW should be doing - showing new worlds, new mysteries and how real and relatable human and alien characters respond and handle them.
[So far, I've enjoyed this season even though it has (for me) the two worst Duds that SNW has produced so far (S3 episodes 2 and 4) - and I hope the rest of the season is more like S3 episodes 1, 3 and 5. Time will tell.]
IMO a great episode and I like that it wasn't what a lot of TOS fans thought it would be - a direct prequel to TOS S1 What Are Little Girls Made Of; and yeah, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact it wasn't.
The Good:
Everything on the 1701 that happened after Gamble's accident and injury. That was very well done and creepy in a very entertaining way. I loved the manner in which they depicted the malevolent entity taking control, and what it did. We also got a nice and classic TOS era redshirt death when Gamble broke out of the Brig.
LOVED the confrontation between proto-Gorn Batel and the entity. It seems the Gorn have a genetic memory of these beings and have fought them before some time in the ancient past.
I also liked that they did have Gamble die at the end. Not because I dislike the character, or the actor; far from it. I just like that they introduced a good character for a short period (3 episodes total) - gave the audience enough time and a little background to decide if they like/dislike him - and then he dies as a result of a Landing party mission showing again that service aboard a Federation Star Fleet vessel CAN BE and often IS dangerous and deadly.
^^^
This is something that (with the exception of later seasons of DS9 and S3 and S$ of ENT) I feel Berman era Trek SORELY lacked. Aside from a few of the TNG cliffhangers; life aboard the 1701-D seemed like being a working member on a Cruise ship.
The way Pela and Scotty quickly contained and beam the malevolent entity away. That was quick and fun to watch.
The Meh:
The stuff in the alien lab just didn't make a lot of sense. It seemed they put the puzzle element in just to HAVE a plot complication for them to solve. I'm not a fan of Technobabble, and yes while the elements were interesting on their own - nothing explained WHY the aliens who built and operated the lab would split up a group in the manner it did. They also didn't do anything to explain (if this WAS a prison) WHY the Blood Sample Lock system would allow a COMPLETELY unknown alien into the facility in the first place. And yes you could argue that the 'party split' was a defense mechanism - but since we saw the lab vaporize the Blue alien one has to wonder why the place didn't just vaporize them all - and also why it let them exit safely. <--- Some more on those aspects would have worked better for me.
The fact that they left the entity in the Transporter Buffer and didn't use the Transporter to scatter its energy far and wide (like Kirk will later do in TOS S2 The Wolf In The Fold); or both Pela and Scotty come up with another way to kill it. It's already killed two 1701 crewmembers so yeah, I doubt any of them would have a moral issue - especially after Pela's little speech on what vides she got from the entity. (Yes, they want to set up a 'Ghost in the machine' scenario and evidenced by the computer glitch displayed at the end - but even they should have enough experience at this point with malevolent non-corporeal entities to go: "So...Best way to kill it, just to be sure?..."
But I guess I'll reserve final judgement until I see the resolution to this new over arching plot complication.
But overall, yeah, this is the kind of thing SNW should be doing - showing new worlds, new mysteries and how real and relatable human and alien characters respond and handle them.
[So far, I've enjoyed this season even though it has (for me) the two worst Duds that SNW has produced so far (S3 episodes 2 and 4) - and I hope the rest of the season is more like S3 episodes 1, 3 and 5. Time will tell.]
I think that was all AR Wall.
No. Because I promise you there is no where in Toronto that tropical at the time of year the episode was shot.
That’s the one thing that kinda sucks about everything shooting in Toronto these days - the lack of exterior locations based on the time of year.
I'm kinda hoping they some time actually take advantage of the fact they film somewhere with actual winter.
Good to know. I'm ignorant on Toronto Weather living in California (Where it is either really hot in the south or the northern part like Eureka and Redding or pretty nice mostly everywhere else). I do know it gets really cold and snows during Hockey season.
I think the "nowhere" is a reference that is still in the pattern buffer like Scotty did in Relics and kinda what M'benga did with his daughter (if I am remembering correctly).That whole bit where he said "nowhere!" reminded me of his face when Kirk asked him "WHERE?!" in The Trouble with Tribbles
When they do the TOS continuation series they should remake Space Seed and have Spock be like "I did your granddaughter" to throw Khan off before neckpinching him or something.
My impression is that the whole katra business is one of those things, like pon farr, that Vulcans are not comfortable talking about with non-Vulcans -- and that is hardly recognized as a scientific fact by the Federation at large.
In The Search for Spock, Kirk has apparently never heard of it before -- while Admiral Morrow dismisses it as "Vulcan mysticism." And that's many years after this episode.
Meanwhile, really liked the "cosmic horror" vibes in this one. (Did I mention I edited the novelization of Event Horizon back in the day?). Nice character dynamics, too.
Fun story:
Whenever TNG was reusing concepts, plot points or ideas from TOS, I thought "whatever, TOS is really old by now, it's okay to revisit an old idea in a modern show".
Now, as I was watching this episode, I thought to myself: " welp, this is just VOY's "Dragon's Teeth", but instead of the Vadwauur with the aliens from ENT's "the crossing".
To confirm this, I wanted to watch trailers on YouTube for these episodes.
They're so old. There aren't even any promos on YouTube for them anymore. Only some clips. And they really show that they're around 20-25 years old.
Holy hell. I'm getting old. Whatever, 90s-00s Trek is really old by now, it's okay to revisit an old idea in a modern show.
Whenever TNG was reusing concepts, plot points or ideas from TOS, I thought "whatever, TOS is really old by now, it's okay to revisit an old idea in a modern show".
Now, as I was watching this episode, I thought to myself: " welp, this is just VOY's "Dragon's Teeth", but instead of the Vadwauur with the aliens from ENT's "the crossing".
To confirm this, I wanted to watch trailers on YouTube for these episodes.
They're so old. There aren't even any promos on YouTube for them anymore. Only some clips. And they really show that they're around 20-25 years old.
Holy hell. I'm getting old. Whatever, 90s-00s Trek is really old by now, it's okay to revisit an old idea in a modern show.
Yes of course. But I was thinking more in terms of a kind of forewarning as to how Scotty turned out to have a bit of a surprise element in his makeup.
I don't think it is? I see it's misspelled as "lense" on Wikipedia (which isn't a word) but all episode reviews say lens.
I lived in Toronto off and on with my ex (He was Canadian but I'm American) and it has really wierd weather at times. Deadly cold in the winter and sweltering heat in the summer bc of the nearness to the lake. However, there are so many beautiful outdoor locations that are accessible year-round, so I don't see why not. I miss that lovely city.
The rub is whether you think Trek is supposed to be a plausible version of our future, or some hermetically sealed self-consistent reality.
I used to be more on the "self-consistent" side but these days I feel like, fuck it, with the Internet and LLMs and burgeoning transhumanism Trek needs to update just to stay on the side of being at all relatable (to say nothing of being relevant).
Everyone on the Enterprise should be a immortal transporter clone who's perpetually 25 years old and never has bad skin. Even nuTrek is ridiculously conservative.
Glad to see some exploring, but
1. It’s “lens”, dammit.
2. In the second half, the logic makes no sense. (Among other things, if “cause precedes effect” where they are, that just means time moves in reverse — and since they’re in that, so would they. So the entire location and everybody in it would all be going in time-reverse — meaning that from their perspective, everything would be happening “normally”, except that when they finally escaped they’d discover they’d moved backwards in time. There’s certainly no reason to expect they’ll be able to magically walk across the bridge before extending it.)
2.5. Which reminds me: How come sometimes N’Jal speaks standard, and sometimes he speaks his own language and needs to be translated? For that matter, why is there
on that one screen? At first I assumed it was something they’d all see in their home languages, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
3. So, was Redjac a Vezda?
4. EDIT: Oh, and funny how Gamble
, but Batel
.
5. I’ll miss
1. It’s “lens”, dammit.
2. In the second half, the logic makes no sense. (Among other things, if “cause precedes effect” where they are, that just means time moves in reverse — and since they’re in that, so would they. So the entire location and everybody in it would all be going in time-reverse — meaning that from their perspective, everything would be happening “normally”, except that when they finally escaped they’d discover they’d moved backwards in time. There’s certainly no reason to expect they’ll be able to magically walk across the bridge before extending it.)
2.5. Which reminds me: How come sometimes N’Jal speaks standard, and sometimes he speaks his own language and needs to be translated? For that matter, why is there
Chinese
3. So, was Redjac a Vezda?
4. EDIT: Oh, and funny how Gamble
goes monster and gets sent to
the brig
the brig
goes monster and gets sent to
Pike’s plushy quarters
Pike’s plushy quarters
5. I’ll miss
Gamble[/]; I get why, but I wish they hadn’t done that.
Last edited:
Yeah, I've fallen in this camp since 2017. The lack of transhumanism/posthumanism in Trek makes it feel very retrofuturist, and not anything like modern-day sci-fi.
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