Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x09 - "Terrarium"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
Since 5/5/22Since when does SNW care about canon?
I liked this episode a lot!
- I also thought the Metron at the end was unnecessary. It makes canon & "Arena" even more messy. However I don't hate it either, I'm okay with it
- The ending with La'an shooting the Gorn was weirdly dark, no typical StarTrek happy understanding ending. But also not unrealistic, so again, not hating it
- The planet, the creatures, the Gorn - that was one of the best looking Star Trek episodes, ever
- This episode is basically a remake of TNG's "The enemy". Even the planet looks similar
- I like how here they're basically friendly right from the start - no reason to be antagonistic in this situation at all. Also differentiates this episode a bit
- I love how this season's theme is basically "monsters". I'm a fan of monsters. And especially space monsters
- Finally an Ortegas-episode! And both the character, the actress & the episode delivered.
This was a very good episode, but I cannot give it a perfect score. Not because of the Metron appearance – I was okay with that – but Ortegas’s flare plan. How did she know the Enterprise would see it if she’s on the other side of the wormhole? Literally makes zero sense.
I’ll give this episode a 9.
That Gorn could have become an ambassador for the Federation, if she was given a chance to talk to Starfleet. It does not matter that the show has to set up “Arena”. The Watsonian view suggests La’an made a terrible mistake.
Anyone saying Uhura would be booted out of 24th century Starfleet for fudging data should also realize that La’an too would be booted from 24th century Starfleet for having an itchy trigger finger.
Considering the real world parallels with police brutality and the methods for greater accountability to address it, it just makes La’an and Starfleet look worse. Even when considering that 23rd century Starfleet is quicker to pull out their phaser in this era, and La’an both visited and is familiar with 2020s Earth. Were the away team even wearing body cameras?
I’ll give this episode a 9.
I don’t understand where the sympathy for La'an come from (and I like La'an). La’an should be pulled from the duty roster and go through retraining, like Ortegas was at the end of “Shuttle to Kenfori”.
That Gorn could have become an ambassador for the Federation, if she was given a chance to talk to Starfleet. It does not matter that the show has to set up “Arena”. The Watsonian view suggests La’an made a terrible mistake.
Anyone saying Uhura would be booted out of 24th century Starfleet for fudging data should also realize that La’an too would be booted from 24th century Starfleet for having an itchy trigger finger.
Why? La’an a space cop. That’s what she does. The real problem is that she should know better, regardless of her past history with the Gorn. Certainly, she should have the training to discern between a threat and someone not in the position to be one.
Considering the real world parallels with police brutality and the methods for greater accountability to address it, it just makes La’an and Starfleet look worse. Even when considering that 23rd century Starfleet is quicker to pull out their phaser in this era, and La’an both visited and is familiar with 2020s Earth. Were the away team even wearing body cameras?
As a space cop in the 23rd century serving on an organization focused on science and exploration she should know better and her weapons have a stun setting.
You know, it’s funny. Unlike many, I wasn’t particularly wild about getting an Ortegas episode. Nothing against it, but Ortegas just hasn’t been a standout character for me. With the streaming era’s dreadfully slim episode counts, I wasn’t in any rush to get this.
Yet… what do you know. I rewatched “Terrarium” after work, and yep, sure enough, I think I’ve finally seen the light. Ortegas is cool.
Yet… what do you know. I rewatched “Terrarium” after work, and yep, sure enough, I think I’ve finally seen the light. Ortegas is cool.
She flies the ship.
It’s so interesting how this show can go from whatever the hell that was last week — one of the most baffling hours of Trek — to something as competently made as this. This is now my favorite episode of this season; and surely one of the best of the show. Which is not to say that it was perfect.
Pretty early on I guessed that the lights Ortegas was seeing would turn out to be the Metrons, but I kept pushing it away in my mind thinking that surely — surely! — they wouldn’t be doing something as uninspired as this. While it didn’t ruin the episode for me, I thought it was super unnecessary, and reading through the comments here and elsewhere it seems like that feeling is nearly universal among viewers. You gotta wonder just who this was included for, as neither the people who care about canon and continuity nor the ones who just watch the show as its own thing seem to appreciate it. (That said, I thought the Metron looked awesome and the actor performing them was perfect.)
Watching this I thought to myself that it was almost like a retelling of “Arena” for a modern audience. And I gotta say, as much as I love the original iconic episode, I liked this much more. Production design and the score were top-notch and basically feature film quality; I’ll really need this one as a soundtrack release. The AR wall was put to perfect use in creating the moon’s eerily surreal atmosphere, and the animatronics on the Gorn were some of the best I ever saw on the small screen. Melissa Navia fired on all cylinders and delivered her best performance on the show so far. Celia Rose Gooding and Anson Mount also stood out to me. Especially the former continues to be one of the best cast performers on the show.
The end was heart-breaking and there was a big part of me hoping they would find a way to rescue the Gorn to the ship instead of the more telegraphed way they ended the character. The one thing the episode is missing is one more scene with La’an and Erica. Wouldn’t need to be much; just something that displays some uneasiness between them. I’m sure there’s a part of La’an that feels terrible about what happened.
Pretty early on I guessed that the lights Ortegas was seeing would turn out to be the Metrons, but I kept pushing it away in my mind thinking that surely — surely! — they wouldn’t be doing something as uninspired as this. While it didn’t ruin the episode for me, I thought it was super unnecessary, and reading through the comments here and elsewhere it seems like that feeling is nearly universal among viewers. You gotta wonder just who this was included for, as neither the people who care about canon and continuity nor the ones who just watch the show as its own thing seem to appreciate it. (That said, I thought the Metron looked awesome and the actor performing them was perfect.)
Watching this I thought to myself that it was almost like a retelling of “Arena” for a modern audience. And I gotta say, as much as I love the original iconic episode, I liked this much more. Production design and the score were top-notch and basically feature film quality; I’ll really need this one as a soundtrack release. The AR wall was put to perfect use in creating the moon’s eerily surreal atmosphere, and the animatronics on the Gorn were some of the best I ever saw on the small screen. Melissa Navia fired on all cylinders and delivered her best performance on the show so far. Celia Rose Gooding and Anson Mount also stood out to me. Especially the former continues to be one of the best cast performers on the show.
The end was heart-breaking and there was a big part of me hoping they would find a way to rescue the Gorn to the ship instead of the more telegraphed way they ended the character. The one thing the episode is missing is one more scene with La’an and Erica. Wouldn’t need to be much; just something that displays some uneasiness between them. I’m sure there’s a part of La’an that feels terrible about what happened.
How do you mean, “how did she know”? She did not know; it was a hunch. She said a couple of times that surely her friends were looking for her. Should she not have even tried, missing possibly the only chance she could have been saved, just because she didn’t know?
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I actually don't have an issue the La'an's actions as it definitely fits the character. She may have had it set to stun, but IMMEDIATELY switched it to 'Kill' and fired once she saw a Gorn. She will always see any Gorn as an immediate and deadly threat to be dispatched with prejudice.
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Was there reason to go in set to kill?
By and large, Starfleet weapon policy should be stun unless indicated otherwise.
I get the drama of the moment in Star Trek but stun as a setting is a nice feature that doesn't get used often enough. Wide angle stun and boarding parties and hostiles are dropped.
I disagree as it actually fixes some issues in the episode including the big one of:
How could the Gorn so expertly fake a live radio conversation between the (deceased two days earlier) Commadore Travers and Captain Kirk?
and
If the Gorn did have all this in depth knowledge of Starfleet and The Federation, why would the Gorn captain immediately assume they were invaders?
Answer? The Gorn didn't fake that conversation; the Metrons did as part of setting the entire confrontation up.
Who knows what info they fed the Gorn Captain to make him want to obliterate a Federation Civilian Research colony?
Spock did the same thing.
Ah, that's what it reminded me of...
...and that!
Because LDS is a sequel and SNW is a prequel
It was a very derivative plot, a homage/rehash of the movie Enemy Mine, but Melissa Navia does great when she's given something to work with. I felt that revealing the Metrons was largely unnecessary, or at least the exposition was. I think a silent cameo, where everyone is frozen and the alien just walks around, looking them all over would have been enough.
Overall, very mid table for the season.
Overall, very mid table for the season.
"Hey, I'm on a barren rock that somehow has a breathable atmosphere... Oh look it gets so close to the gas giant that the gasses actually blanket the entire moon... but hey, I'm sure there's food here somewhere."
The Gorn costume is pretty cool.
What does that mean? More of the handheld type?
Doesn't Galileo Seven use that trope?
At first I thought it was the Enterprise beaming them up, but then when the Metron appeared I realized what it was.
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