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

[Greg Cox]

"I'm a soldier, not a diplomat." -- James T. Kirk.

It's funny. Even today, some folks still talk as though "Star Trek" = TNG, but honestly, at this point TNG is a more of an outlier when it comes to aggressively pushing the whole "evolved" human utopia business to the extreme. And, in its defense, even TNG eventually allowed for a more complicated, realistic portrait of human nature in episodes like "The Drumhead" and "The Wounded."

The way I see it, you can't really explore the human condition by declaring that humanity has "evolved" beyond all the uglier, messier parts of humanity.

Heck, the whole point of "The Enemy Within" was that Kirk needed both his positive and negative qualities to be whole. He couldn't just discard his "evil" half.

 

[Steve Roby]

I've seen people argue that TNG also turned Worf into a murderer, Picard into a man who condoned murder, and La Forge into a creepy incel. They definitely didn't stay perfectly evolved. And yet the myth persists that humans in Star Trek are meant to be portrayed as perfect.

 

[Mudd]

"I'm a soldier, not a diplomat." -- James T. Kirk.

It's funny. Even today, some folks still talk as though "Star Trek" = TNG, but honestly, at this point TNG is a more of an outlier when it comes to aggressively pushing the whole "evolved" human utopia business to the extreme. And, in its defense, even TNG eventually allowed for a more complicated, realistic portrait of human nature in episodes like "The Drumhead" and "The Wounded."

The way I see it, you can't really explore the human condition by declaring that humanity has "evolved" beyond all the uglier, messier parts of humanity.

Heck, the whole point of "The Enemy Within" was that Kirk needed both his positive and negative qualities to be whole. He couldn't just discard his "evil" half.

All of this. But paricularly the point that for many people TNG somehow epitomizes what Trek ought to be.

This is my favorite episode of the season, so far.

 

[kirk55555]

Only 10 episodes a season, and wasting another one on a terrible premise. "What if Starfleet had a trash journalism style Exposé done about them" would always be a bad episode premise, but maybe DS9 cpuld have pulled it off. SNW couldn't, and this was a bad episode, although SNW has had a lot worse, unfortunately.

3/10, whoever wrote this should never be allowed back. SNW really is a feast or famine type show, its either excellent or garbage and this week was a bad week.

 

[Mudd]

Only 10 episodes a season, and wasting another one on a terrible premise. "What if Starfleet had a trash journalism style Exposé done about them" would always be a bad episode premise, but maybe DS9 cpuld have pulled it off. SNW couldn't, and this was a bad episode, although SNW has had a lot worse, unfortunately.

3/10, whoever wrote this should never be allowed back. SNW really is a feast or famine type show, its either excellent or garbage and this week was a bad week.

This is a nonsensical take.

 

[I am not Spock]

seems to be polarising people, this episode. Some love it, some hate it.

I think they must have been watching a different episode to me. I really enjoyed this one. It felt extremely 'Trek' . To its core.

SNW has been on a roll the last few weeks.

 

[Artoo Atari]

Not bad, but not great. Average story. However, the shaky-cam documentary style made the episode almost unwatchable for me at times. Even got a little nauseated from it. Also, i had to turn on the subtitles and rewind a lot to get the dialogue. I found it very distracting and it made it difficult to follow.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

However, the shaky-cam documentary style made the episode almost unwatchable for me at times.

Did they seriously not use any Gyro Stablized Gimbal Camera Rigs during the Documentary Camera footage?

IRL, there are tons of cheap Gyro Stablized Gimbal Camera Rig's.

In Universe, in the 24th century, his Drone Footage should be Automatically Gyro Stablized.

There's no reason why the Camera Footage should be shaky for any reason, in fact it should be so smooth that it's eerie.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The cam didn’t seem all that shaky to me.

 

[Firebird]

There was nothing wrong with the stability of the cinematography. The very short average shot length of the episode was far more noticeable.

 

[Destructor]

Why don't you sneak in a look before watching it with the rest of your family? Just a suggestion

Sometimes I do, I try to get a read from the BBS beforehand though, as it might not be neccessary.

 

[Quantum21]

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..!

That is a complete failure of understanding. This is resoundingly a theme of Trek. I'm surprised there was even one negative review. People will come around on this one.

 

[Quantum21]

"I'm a soldier, not a diplomat." -- James T. Kirk.

It's funny. Even today, some folks still talk as though "Star Trek" = TNG, but honestly, at this point TNG is a more of an outlier when it comes to aggressively pushing the whole "evolved" human utopia business to the extreme. And, in its defense, even TNG eventually allowed for a more complicated, realistic portrait of human nature in episodes like "The Drumhead" and "The Wounded."

The way I see it, you can't really explore the human condition by declaring that humanity has "evolved" beyond all the uglier, messier parts of humanity.

Heck, the whole point of "The Enemy Within" was that Kirk needed both his positive and negative qualities to be whole. He couldn't just discard his "evil" half.

There are several episodes of TOS that have inconsistent writing, but there are several that also dispel that Starfleet is purely military.

There's nothing wrong with evolving it to be even less so in 80 years. People change. Roddenberry changed.

 

[Paul755]

A step back from the last few weeks for sure but it wasn’t a bad episode. In fact the mission they were on probably would have made for a good or at least decent episode. It’s the documentary framing the knocks it down a peg or two.

There was some good stuff in the documentary footage though. Like getting some background stuff on Ortegas or how very badly M’Benga came off in the first few interview portions.

Spock’s story…holy over sharing Batman.

Randomly…I wonder what Batel does all day while Pike is on duty. Like, is she on leave or is she doing somekind of administrative work.

I’ll give it a 7/10

 

[indranee]

There are several episodes of TOS that have inconsistent writing, but there are several that also dispel that Starfleet is purely military.

There's nothing wrong with evolving it to be even less so in 80 years. People change. Roddenberry changed.

I've never thought of the Federation as being militaristic, but Starfleet was always a combined arm of the Federation in my view -- exploratory and military if need be.

 

[XCV330]

9. This might season might be consistently better than the previous 2. Reminded me oh the M*A*S*H episode "The Interview" in some ways. I'm glad they are still trying out different ideas of Trek.

 

[XCV330]

Is it me, or does the 203 crew count feel kind of low for the USS Enterprise being that big @ 442.6 meters?

by TOS the crew is nearly doubled, the passageways are crowded, and crew spaces are much smaller. At some point the mission required a larger crew

 

[Lucky]

I gave it an 8/10. I liked the documentary format, and the alien weapon creature was very sympathetic. I'm glad most of the crew got to explain what Starfleet means to them, and I liked that it asked difficult questions about the Federation and how it could be perceived.

 

[Tosk]

There was nothing wrong with the stability of the cinematography. The very short average shot length of the episode was far more noticeable.

It felt a bit like they were scared of having so many static shots so they had to compensate sometimes with short shot lengths.

It didn't bother me too much but I can definitely see why it might some.

 

[JoeZhang]

I thought it had some good individual scenes but overall was terrible as an episode.

The idea that Spock of all people would casually mention he was a childhood cutter on a TV documentary was a rough start.