Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x07 - "What Is Starfleet?"

[Trekker4747]

Glad to see all the positive reactions here..! Am genuinely surprised by the hate for SNW season 3 and this episode in particular online... Even Jessie Gender is calling this episode 'a failure of ST'... Glad that the BBS is mostly a place of positivity and love for ST..!

Oh, wow, Jessie Gender didn't like this?

 

[Markonian]

1 – Terrible.
This isn’t an episode, this is a documentary.
I fast–forwarded through the interviews but even in the slightly–more regular sections the camera positioning and angles still varied from actual episodes.

I’m thoroughly disgusted by watching this.

 

[aquova]

That was a very interesting episode, this and the previous episode have been the standouts of the season. I've felt that while this show has tried to do "unique" episodes, this is the first one that really felt like it was pushing a boundary. Examining Starfleet's role in the Federation is a very interesting idea, you could easily see this being a documentary about the Navy or something similar. I think it really elevated what this episode would've been if it was just the vanilla alien weapon plot. I do wonder how this documentary would've been received inside the fictional world. I'm not sure Starfleet comes out looking particularly good for having signed up to this biological weapon in the first place, plus the documentarian asking a bunch of war vets about what killing people felt like seems a bit irrelevant.

I think I only have two nitpicks regarding this episode. The first is that if that guy put a floating camera 6 inches from my head I'd snap at him too. It lent itself to some unique cinematography, but I'm not sure it was actually good cinematography. Secondly, I found the Ortegas sibling conflict to be a bit clumsy. Making him Ortegas's brother gives him a bit of immediate sincerity that a random journalist wouldn't have, but I'm not sure making them estranged did much. I'm not sure Ortegas is ever identified inside the documentary as his sister, which would make all her comments come off much more hostile than they normally would.

Still, I think it was a solid episode.

 

[Yistaan]

Beto: Look at this extravagance! Captain Pike already has a food synthesizer, but here we see he also has an extravagant kitchen and fireplace, while people on Earth are living in trailer homes while hearing the Federation with a straight face say that poverty has been eliminated and--

Pike: All right, lay off a bit, that's enough.

 

[eschaton]

Oh, wow, Jessie Gender didn't like this?

I think she read way, way too much into the episode, trying to find parallels to Israel/Palestine and Russia/Ukraine in the conflict that frankly were not there. Though I agree with her regarding disgust that Beto's initial suspicion with Starfleet is just boiled down to irrational feelings.

A lot of her anger, though, just boils down to seeing Starfleet through the lens of "Space America" rather than being explicitly positioned as being a more just/fair organization than now. She's viewing the story allegorically, and thus thinking the message is "America/the American military is a good thing, and always makes the ethical call when the chips are down."

 

[Jedi Marso]

I found it very frustrating at first. This is so typical of our times to "I have an agenda, and now I'll prove it" approach to a "documentary". But I won't hold it against the episode, because I'm sure that was the point.

I knew how this approach would end, and it ended exactly as I expected.

And the story under the documentary was very Trek.

My fave episode this season. I gave it 10.

This is a pretty good summary of how I felt about this one. Coupla points:

1. Closeup shots were a little too close up, for my taste.

2. Didn't like some of the other 'documentary' camera angles, and the scenes where characters were being 'overheard' were far too quiet. TV shows need to make the audio audible at all times without the viewer having to adjust the volume. There's a method called 'stage whispering'. They should check it out.

3. LOVED the look of the new aliens. Here is a species that could have been the foil or villain for this series! Plus, you could do a whole arc on the Federation interfering in the war between two societies.

4. La'an is becoming my favorite character on this show, I think. Usually I lean towards the captain in any Trek series, but I feel like Mount's Pike is beginning to fall short in a lot of ways here. Una's number one is a good character but she gets zero to do in almost every ep and she is a far cry from the cold, almost Vulcan-like Number One played by Majel Barret in The Cage.

5. Nu-Trek has obviously abandoned the Roddenberry ideal that humans or humankind are more sociologically or mentally advanced in the 23rd Century. The characters are pulled right out of our own life and times in terms of their reactions, motivations, and emotions.

 

[Jedi Marso]

A nitpick, but did anyone else just not believe Spock would tell such a vulnerable childhood story in a documentary interview, for public consumption?

The Spock of old would not have, but I saw this as an outlier of the writers living in 2025, where people routinely post the most cringe aspects of their daily lives on social media.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Just started watching, interesting retcon, the TOS Enterprise is the flagship

The whole 'flagship' thing in this era is bad writing. At this stage the Enterprise (under April AND Pike) and her crew have done absolutely nothing to warrant such a distinction. This is the result of writers 'looking back' to a LATER era. (TNG)

 

[Racefuel]

The whole 'flagship' thing in this era is bad writing. At this stage the Enterprise (under April AND Pike) and her crew have done absolutely nothing to warrant such a distinction. This is the result of writers 'looking back' to a LATER era. (TNG)

I get your meaning, but at the same time..by this point the "Enterprise" name has NX-01 in its lineage.

Retcons do what retcons do.

 

[Sakonna]

Is this the first time we've seen the spread at one of Pike's dinners include the colored cubes from TOS? I loved that detail.

Anyone else burst out laughing at that shot of Beto gazing soulfully at Pike's emo guitar playing?

I'm surprised they'd pay the Batel actress just to be in the final montage. I wonder if she had a cut scene from earlier in the episode.

Scotty and Pelia were much missed this week. Especially Pelia, when they gave her that great setup with this from "Through The Lens Of Time."

 

[Yistaan]

The whole 'flagship' thing in this era is bad writing. At this stage the Enterprise (under April AND Pike) and her crew have done absolutely nothing to warrant such a distinction. This is the result of writers 'looking back' to a LATER era. (TNG)

A flagship is where a flag officer sets up shop I believe in real life (correct me if I'm wrong). In which case the only times the Enterprise qualifies is when Admiral Kirk was in command for the first 3 TOS movies, and that time Shelby took command of the F before she got shot up by Borg. I suppose Admiral Janeway running around in Prodigy counts too.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

These writers should have done more research. We have real world examples of what was being attempted here. There was a series about life aboard an American carrier. It was pro-Navy, but it did show some of the unpleasant aspects of life aboard carriers while at the same time respecting the Navy. Beto's documentary was jejune and would never have seen the light of day.

Here are three examples of real-world documentaries:
* City At Sea: Life Inside World’s Largest US Navy Aircraft Carrier:
* Carrier (TV Series):
* Carrier: Fortress At Sea

 

[HotRod]

The whole 'flagship' thing in this era is bad writing. At this stage the Enterprise (under April AND Pike) and her crew have done absolutely nothing to warrant such a distinction. This is the result of writers 'looking back' to a LATER era. (TNG)

I like to think that the Enterprise is ALWAYS the Flagship, so long as one is actually operating.

This is a nice way to honour the NX-01 and her crew for all they did to not only save Earth, but for playing a significant role in the formation of the Federation.

It's why there was such a gap between the decommissioning of the NX-01 and the launch of the 1701.

The name was so important that is took almost a century until they were finally ready to attach the name to a worthy enough ship.

 

[Noname Given]

...5. Nu-Trek has obviously abandoned the Roddenberry ideal that humans or humankind are more sociologically or mentally advanced in the 23rd Century. The characters are pulled right out of our own life and times in terms of their reactions, motivations, and emotions...

Watch more TOS and you'll see GR himself didn't follow that ideal in MANY of his stories and scripts that he himself wrote. TOS character WERE ALWAYS more 'contemporary' for their day.

He really tried to put that ideal into practice more in TNG - which is why that series always has come across as really sanctimonious and there become fewer episodes of it I'll bother to watch for that reason while I still will honestly watch and enjoy any TOS episode (with the exceptions of TOS S3 And the Children Shall Lead and Way To Eden).

 

[Tuskin38]

1 – Terrible.
This isn’t an episode, this is a documentary.
I fast–forwarded through the interviews but even in the slightly–more regular sections the camera positioning and angles still varied from actual episodes.

I’m thoroughly disgusted by watching this.

Your loss, it's a great episode if you actual stopped and watched it properly.

 

[Greg Cox]

5. Nu-Trek has obviously abandoned the Roddenberry ideal that humans or humankind are more sociologically or mentally advanced in the 23rd Century. The characters are pulled right out of our own life and times in terms of their reactions, motivations, and emotions.

That was pretty much just a TNG thing. TOS was much more about human society making progress, but human beings still being human, warts and all. It was about humanity striving to better itself, and driven by positive ideals, but not literally a utopia full of "evolved" role models.

Personally, I prefer the TOS approach. (See also DS9.)

 

[Jedi Marso]

A flagship is where a flag officer sets up shop I believe in real life (correct me if I'm wrong).

You aren't wrong, although these days the word has a couple of meanings.

1. In naval history, particularly 'age of sail' era, yes. The 'flagship' is the ship where the admiral 'flies his flag.' Or, in the case of a commodore, his broad pennant. In the age of sail (and even modern times) this is an actual flag, so the ship that flew it was the 'flag ship', or 'flagship.' The difference was that in the age of sail, communications were via flag hoists and signal books, whereas nowadays radios and datalinks handle the comms. (Although signal hoists and light lamps are still used for ships under EMCON within line of sight.)

2. In modern times, it has come to mean the ship (or vehicle, or product) chosen to represent the entire brand. So when they say the Enterprise-D was the 'Federation flagship,' the meaning is that even though there is no flag officer embarked, this particular ship is seen as the one best representing the 'ideal' or 'product' represented by the whole- in this case, Starfleet, and in a broader sense the entire Federation, and its ideals.

 

[Tuskin38]

V shows need to make the audio audible at all times without the viewer having to adjust the volume.

I could hear it fine with my normal TV volume.
Also consider how it was being recorded 'in-universe' the recording device was far away.

 

[Tuskin38]

Oh, wow, Jessie Gender didn't like this?

I haven't watched her review yet, but IIRC she doesn't like stories that glorify Starfleet. I remember her not liking the final song of the musical for that reason.

The reviewers over at TrekCulture also didn't really like the episode. Though most of the complaints was in the format of the episode.

 

[Racefuel]

In a strict military sense, a flagship is whatever ship the commanding admiral of that group of ships establishes his command "flag", as has been mentioned.

In more common terms, it is the "representative ship" of the fleet for Star Trek..which is what it is.