Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x06 - "The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail"

[Sakonna]

The suit the scavenger was wearing looked like it was modified from a different suit design than the one in that photo. Probably just no communication between the art and costume department

I thought that was just hundreds of years of evolution from the original idea. They've reinvented it many times as they assimilated new technology. The same design influence remains, but not the exact same designs.

It's interesting because when they were saying even the Gorn thought of the scavengers as monsters, I was thinking to myself, "What is it with this season, anyway? Just last week, we had the pseudo-Pah-wraiths, and now this?" It wouldn't have nuked my enjoyment of this episode, but it was still gnawing at me. Like, is this the season of monsters right now?

I suppose the scavengers being human doesn't change that. If anything, that accentuates it all. But. Importantly. It contextualizes them, and lends gravitas, in a savvy way. It separates them from the other "monstrous" entities that the U.S.S. Enterprise has been encountering lately. That's good.

On one level, I'm finding it odd how horror-focused this season is, and wish for slightly more varied tones given the limited episode count.

On the other, this is why I have such weird love for season 2 of TNG - space felt so scary and weird and vast and inexplicable in (many of) those episodes, more than any other season of Star Trek, until this one.

It's nice to again feel this kind of mysterious and weird space menace. Sometimes, you just run into a Nagilum in a scary void, and there isn't much of an explanation for how this horror came to be.

Yeah, I think the scavenger ship should have survived and fled. I think that would have been better than destroying it with a couple torpedoes. It was too easy. In fact, I almost chuckled a bit when they destroyed the scavenger ship so easily with torpedoes. Why did they not think of that sooner when they first noticed the phasers were not doing anything?

I thought the scavenger ship was destroyed because it detonated the warp core of the Klingon ship inside it, and blowing that ship was a shot you could only make with torpedoes, when the mouth happened to be open.

It might have made sense to have included Sam Kirk here, though I'd prefer he stay onboard the Enterprise. But it's as close to perfect as SNW has accomplished to date, and clearly in the top five of the show as a whole.

I always need more Sam Kirk, but especially here. The chance to explore that relationship is the only thing I liked about the idea of having James Kirk on the show, and they've barely done a thing with it.

I really don't like Paul Wesley's portrayal as Kirk. Compared to Anson he's a charisma hole. This episode did not make me yearn for a "Year one" series. SNW works best as it's own show, NOT when it tries to launch a TOS reboot

I just have to say I'm always relieved to see someone else who also doesn't like Wesley. I hate the performance so much, and I feel like a real outlier with that!

 

[fireproof78]

This episode takes place after Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow meaning that the 1990s Eugenics Wars isn't a thing, unless they're shifting back to the Space Seed timeline without telling us. I suppose it's POSSIBLE that Khan launched the Eugenics Wars in the early 2030s and Pelia used the term WW3 to describe it (instead of the war of the 2050s mentioned in TNG and other episodes) considering that they've more or less become the same thing in recent Trek dialogue despite being decades apart still.

TOS refered to the Eugenics Wars as WW3 so not sure why they're treated separately.

But good point on the time travel. I tend to ignore that.

 

[eschaton]

What a coincidence that every crew member stuck on the Farragut would later join Kirk’s crew.

I don't think it's a coincidence at all. As I said upthread, it could be one of two things:

• Kirk is impressed by all of them, and asks them to stay on instead of transfer when he takes command.
• Conversely, they may have also been impressed by Kirk's turnaround by the end of the episode, and formed a bond with him.

Characters like La'an and Ortegas are junior enough they could stay on under Kirk, but since they didn't get a chance to form a bond under his command, it makes more sense why they moved on.

Presuming they're not dead by then, I mean.

 

[Romulan_spy]

I thought the scavenger ship was destroyed because it detonated the warp core of the Klingon ship inside it, and blowing that ship was a shot you could only make with torpedoes, when the mouth happened to be open.

That is how they destroyed the scavenger ship, yes. I just would have preferred if the scavenger ship had survived.

 

[JohnCrichton1999]

I don't think it's a coincidence at all. As I said upthread, it could be one of two things:

• Kirk is impressed by all of them, and asks them to stay on instead of transfer when he takes command.
• Conversely, they may have also been impressed by Kirk's turnaround by the end of the episode, and formed a bond with him.

Characters like La'an and Ortegas are junior enough they could stay on under Kirk, but since they didn't get a chance to form a bond under his command, it makes more sense why they moved on.

Presuming they're not dead by then, I mean.

I got a feeling Ortegas is going to retire due to trauma/stress, and La'an will go be first officer for Una on another ship that Una will be captain of as Chris is promoted to Fleet Captain or Admiral, then before Kirk takes official command, he asks those he's worked with, Spock especially, whether they would serve under his command. Would be similar in the Season 9 premiere of Stargate SG-1.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Decent episode, but JFC, Kirk is a real dick in this episode ... not quite Tim Watters level, but close.

 

[Donald G]

Got it!

Still would've been cool to see the other side of that story. I guess it would've had to have been told very early in SNW's run.

2257 would've put the Tycho IV Incident either during the several month time jump late in Discovery's first season or somewhere during Discovery's second, IIRC.

 

[fireproof78]

Decent episode, but JFC, Kirk is a real dick in this episode ... not quite Tim Watters level, but close.

He's a professional.

 

[Yistaan]

Mendez: You ever meet Chris Pike?

Kirk: Some Commodore you are, you never heard the story of how I saved him and his ship from the evil bogeyman space scavengers that were actually human? What do you guys do at these starbases, play kadis-kot all day?

 

[Sakonna]

I believe the correct answer would have been:

Mendez: You ever meet Chris Pike?

Kirk: Yes, we were in a musical together.

 

[Tuskin38]

Got it!

Still would've been cool to see the other side of that story. I guess it would've had to have been told very early in SNW's run.

He died before SNW season 1. Iirc 2257, which would be DSC season 2

 

[Tuskin38]

I thought that was just hundreds of years of evolution from the original idea. They've reinvented it many times as they assimilated new technology. The same design influence remains, but not the exact same designs.

I mean the base suit is a completely different IRL human space suit. It’s still based on a real space suit, just not the one in that crew image

 

[Yistaan]

I believe the correct answer would have been:

Mendez: You ever meet Chris Pike?

Kirk: Yes, we were in a musical together.

Mendez: Oh yes I remember now. I got the albums as soon as they came out

 

[Charles Phipps]

*Sigh*

A sigh of relief, to be clear. I liked this one. Thank goodness.

It's nice that it avoided:

1. Whedon-esque gimmicks
2. Romantic drama

 

[Yistaan]

1. Whedon-esque gimmicks

Scary scavenger: Haha, Pike I'm going to kill you now, your death will be so slow and painful you'll wish you were in a flashing wheelchair instead!

Pike: How do you even know about that?

(meanwhile back on the Farragut)

Spock: Hit successful captain, we have just detonated the D7 inside the scavenger ship.

Kirk: Will you look at that, the scavenger ship blew up too just like we hoped.

(and on the Enterprise)

Scary scavenger suddenly powers down before killing Pike, despite the reveal of him being human, not unlike the sudden Chitauri collapse in Avengers.

Written and Directed by Joss Whedon Joseph Hill (Joss Whedon's still canceled)

 

[Jedman67]

I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. I gave it a 9 bec I felt something was missing that would have made it perfect, but still very good.

Thoughts:
At the end, when everyone started going into shock over the aliens, I predicted they'd be human about 30 seconds prior to the reveal.

I loved that Pelia just happened to have a couple of telephones in her suitcase; although why an advanced starship wouldn't have hard-wired/ grounded comms as a backup is beyond me.

I kinda wished they'd redressed the DSC bridge for the Farragut instead of just changing the lights on the Ent set, but you gotta admit, it did look cool.

It was nice to see Kirk unaccustomed to command, although as a first officer (unless he's really new in that position) shouldn't he already be used to sometimes running the ship by himself?

I really enjoyed the little bonding scene between Kirk and Spock. Spock hasn't yet developed the command mentality he would later acquire, but he has good instincts. It hints at the future professional relationship which later develops into a strong friendship between the two.

Early days yet.

 

[Charles Phipps]

As for the generation ship, I’m just assuming that the Scavengers got themselves contacted by someone during their crisis and they proceeded to act more like the Pakleds than anyone else. Maybe the aliens they encountered were hostile (like Klingons) or maybe they were friendly only for the humans to betray them (like the opening to the ENT “Mirror, Mirror” episode). They proceeded to get warp drive but found themselves either too paranoid to deal with other aliens or suddenly marked as outlaws so they had nowhere to go peacefully.

As for how they got this far out? Well, maybe their original plan was outside Federation Space where they assumed a habital world would be (but maybe it was already inhabited due to telescopes showing it 100,000,000 earlier). Lots of ways this could go wrong.

As for why there's 7000, it's meant to be a colony ship that's a one and done. You need at least a couple of thousands of humans to send into space if it's meant to prevent extinction.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

As for the generation ship, I’m just assuming that the Scavengers got themselves contacted by someone during their crisis and they proceeded to act more like the Pakleds than anyone else. Maybe the aliens they encountered were hostile (like Klingons) or maybe they were friendly only for the humans to betray them (like the opening to the ENT “Mirror, Mirror” episode). They proceeded to get warp drive but found themselves either too paranoid to deal with other aliens or suddenly marked as outlaws so they had nowhere to go peacefully.

As for how they got this far out? Well, maybe their original plan was outside Federation Space where they assumed a habital world would be (but maybe it was already inhabited due to telescopes showing it 100,000,000 earlier). Lots of ways this could go wrong.

As for why there's 7000, it's meant to be a colony ship that's a one and done. You need at least a couple of thousands of humans to send into space if it's meant to prevent extinction.

Which doesn't mean it needs to launch with thousands of living people.
For all we know it could have had hundreds or thousand of fertilized eggs or embryos on board.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Which doesn't mean it needs to launch with thousands of living people.
For all we know it could have had hundreds or thousand of fertilized eggs or embryos on board.

Possibly but this ship implies that they don't seem to have a colony and is just like the Quarians.

 

[Yistaan]

I loved that Pelia just happened to have a couple of telephones in her suitcase; although why an advanced starship wouldn't have hard-wired/ grounded comms as a backup is beyond me.

I theorized earlier in this thread that the events of this episode is what causes Starfleet to overhaul the Enterprise into a more "primitive" looking style with hard-wired grounded equipment so that this disaster doesn't happen again, leading to the TOS look.