Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x09 - "Terrarium"

[valkyrie013]

An Ortegas episode.. FINALLY!

I liked it but didn't like that it was another rehash of a movie, thist ime Enemy Mine.. ( I know.. the concept has been done ad nausem elsewhere)
what i REALLY didn't like was La'an and Co shooting the Gorn at the end. Why? Gorn! Shoot! How the hell is that Starfleet? ( i know.. A Klingon!! Fwap..) Why did they have Phaser rifles.. Why were they set to KILL ??
Ortegas was asking what she could do to La'an.. I know.. Ripp her a new AHole! Up one side and down the other. ugh..

Another thought is this would have made a better La'an episode then Ortegas, she has more Past with the Gorn, and would have been a good way for her to get over it.

For those saying that Ortegas is under used ( she is) Just take a look at Discovery and anybody not named Michael or Saru...

 

[Mudd]

It would have been absurd for La'An not to shoot the Gorn under those circumstances.

Hey, do raygun rifles even have stun settings?

 

[TRON JA307020]

I know I'm not holding a gun making a split decision and have had the benefit of watching the episode.

But they exited a pod together. Ortegas was not in distress, screaming for help or anything. The Gorn wasn't doing anything hostile.

I found it hard to accept. Perhaps contrived, but if they had the Gorn scream at the away team reflexively on in defence of Ortegas it may have given them a bit more reason. So like certain police officers they can then say they were threatened and feared for their life.

Exactly.

 

[Tuskin38]

They used a TOS sound effect when the water condenser activated

 

[The Wormhole]

Why did they have Phaser rifles..

They were going to an unknown planet with evidence there was someone there with explosives. Why shouldn't they be armed with rifles?

Why were they set to KILL ??

I'm pretty sure phasers are always set to kill as a default. Otherwise, why is everyone always ordering their teams "set phasers to stun"? That'd be redundant if they're set to stun as a default.

 

[Jag2112]

Screencaps gallery now online:

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ScreenCaps "Terrarium" (S3:E9)

Cygnus-X1.Net: A Tribute to Star Trek

www.cygnus-x1.net

 

[ToddCam]

So, thus far this season, we've gotten the Gorn, Roger Korby, Trelane (son of Q), a holodeck, discussion of the Romulans, mention of sehlats and Vulcan katras, and probably even more TOS firsts that I'm forgetting. If they ever do that Star Trek Year One series with Kirk taking over the Enterprise, they'll have to change the show's tagline to "To Boldly Go Where Pike's Enterprise Has Already Gone Before."

I get people have their frequently returned to complaints for everything, and I'm sure it's human nature to compile things with dubious relevance to make one's point stronger. I do it too. But including a sehlat in the list of callbacks is stretching things. Spock had a pet sehlat as shown in "Yesteryear". Sehlats are apparently common enough to be well known by Vulcans in general. We saw one on ENT. I would say it falls into the category of recurrent alien culture aspects we see repeatedly, like a Klingon mentioning a targ. If all it takes is being referenced in the past to make it worthy of the "WHY CAN'T THIS SHOW BE ORIGINAL?!" complaining, what doesn't count? Same with katras.

Yes, I am again complain about complaining.

 

[Sakonna]

Did I catch that right - When the Metron made Erica "forget" - he mentioned something like they "might need to make all of humanity forget the Gorn" & vice versa?

Like - are the writers building in a retcon of epic promotions, where everyone actually forgets all the intricate Gorn stories, just to have "Arena" play out with Kirk not knowing what a "Gorn" is?

Then when we got the alien identifying themselves as a Metron, I actually went "Oh, LORD!" and when the Metron talked about altering people's memories because humanity and the Gorn weren't ready to meet them yet, I started swearing at my screen. What a lazy fucking way to resolve SNW's continuity discrepancies with TOS in general and "Arena" specifically. Memory erasure? JFC, why not just say it was all a dream?

Rewatch the scenes and listen more carefully to what he said. No where does he mention altering their memories about the Gorn.

"You won't remember me, and perhaps someday we may need to reset your perception of the Gorn as well." Potentially confusing pronoun usage, but the Metron does several times use "you" to refer to "all of humanity/Gornity" and not just specifically Ortegas and Gornette.

To me, that also sounded like setup for later erasing all of humanity's memories of the Gorn, to make all the continuity track perfectly.

Reminds me of right at the start of Disco when they kept saying "don't worry, we have a brilliant plan to make this all work with canon!"

I joked "what, are they going to order everyone not to talk about it, like that Simpsons episode?", which was the most comically stupid idea I could think of, and then two seasons later that was exactly it!

It could also be setup for the Metrons putting the TOS crew in some sort of memory erasure bubble in "Arena", which is an idea I do like. Maybe it was just that one crew at that one moment that had no memory of the Gorn. (I feel I should specify that the idea I like the most is just relaxing about making the tiny details of "Arena" track and saying "it tracks well enough as is", but since we will not get that...)

It also makes "Arena" a "cleaner" test for the Metrons. Or just a different test than the one we just saw. Whereas in "Terrarium" they are seeing if Ortegas and Gornette can overcome their existing biases, "Arena" can be the test of what happens with a blank-slate human and Gorn that don't know anything about the other.

Or this was the test of two ladies, and then later they decided to try the dude version.

 

[Trekker4747]

I have seen this episode before. Several times. It was okay, but it's a retelling of a retelling

Every story is in this era, different characters and settings change things.

It would have been absurd for La'An not to shoot the Gorn under those circumstances.

Hey, do raygun rifles even have stun settings?

The circumstances of them coming out of shelter together not in struggle? And why wouldn't they have stun?

They were going to an unknown planet with evidence there was someone there with explosives. Why shouldn't they be armed with rifles?

I'm pretty sure phasers are always set to kill as a default. Otherwise, why is everyone always ordering their teams "set phasers to stun"? That'd be redundant if they're set to stun as a default.

And I'm pretty sure they're always set to "off" and then your put it on a setting, usually stun since they're a defensive organization. They know the explosion was caused by Often as, why go down there in combat mode set to kill? No reason to think hostile environment.

 

[Rahul]

"You won't remember me, and perhaps someday we may need to reset your perception of the Gorn as well." Potentially confusing pronoun usage, but the Metron does several times use "you" to refer to "all of humanity/Gornity" and not just specifically Ortegas and Gornette.

To me, that also sounded like setup for later erasing all of humanity's memories of the Gorn, to make all the continuity track perfectly.

Reminds me of right at the start of Disco when they kept saying "don't worry, we have a brilliant plan to make this all work with canon!"

I joked "what, are they going to order everyone not to talk about it, like that Simpsons episode?", which was the most comically stupid idea I could think of, and then two seasons later that was exactly it!

It could also be setup for the Metrons putting the TOS crew in some sort of memory erasure bubble in "Arena", which is an idea I do like. Maybe it was just that one crew at that one moment that had no memory of the Gorn. (I feel like I should specify that the idea I like the most is just relaxing about making the tiny details of "Arena" track and saying "it tracks well enough as is", but since we will not get that...)

It also makes "Arena" a "cleaner" test for the Metrons. Or just a different test than the one we just saw. Whereas in "Terrarium" they are seeing if Ortegas and Gornette can overcome their existing biases, "Arena" can be the test of what happens with a blank-slate human and Gorn that don't know anything about the other.

Or this was the test of two ladies, and then later they decided to try the dude version.

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So basically the writers answer to SNW's biggest continuity problem is not "a wizard did it", but.... a literal wizard saying "maybe we should do it".
Unironically great trolling.

I'm not sure Arena and Enemy Mine are that similar. One is a story of two enemies forced to fight mano a mano to satisfy some aliens. Enemy Mine is a story of two shipwrecked enemies who are forced to work together to survive. I don't think Arena had any influence on Enemy Mine, and of course Enemy Mine is based on a book and, though this isn't referenced in the Wiki entry for the book or the film, must have been influenced even if only subconsciously by Hell in the Pacific and even that film was influenced by an earlier one!

Hell, when it comes to Arena, while there's no indication that Gene L Coon consciously ripped off a short story from the 40s the similarities are telling.

And of course the tale of a person shipwrecked and forced to survive can be traced back to Robinson Crusoe, and had already been given the sci-fi treatment in Robinson Crusoe on Mars

Funny story - the resemblances between "Arena" the TOS episode and the book are literally - guy fights alien, and whoever wins/loses his entire species/ships will also be wiped out.
Everything else is different. There's no 3rd party (Metrons) in the book. And in the book wiping out the aliens is a surprise and a great triumph. Not a moral dilemma the hero decides against it.

By modern standards it's obvious these stories are in no way related. But at the time, where sci-fi stories are relatively new, the title alone as well as the "1 vs 1 concept" alone was enough that the producers bought the rights just to be on the safe side.

 

[Tosk]

Is this the first time we've seen 2D Chess in Trek? (At least in a "present" setting.)

No, it's definitely popped up before. I recall it specifically on DS9, Sisko played Jadzia in Equilibrium at the very least.

 

[Michael]

They used a TOS sound effect when the water condenser activated

Yes! And the score riffed on the original series music again as well. I think the “act break” cue was almost verbatim from TOS, albeit with a modern instrumentation and spin.

Once again, I think Nami Melumad is doing an absolutely brilliant job this season. The music playing over some of the more emotional scenes when Erica and the Gorn were building trust was heartbreakingly beautiful.

Sigorney

Gornette

Love these. I wonder, just what do actual Gorn names sound like?

It’s interesting that some theorize that the entire experience was merely a dream and that Gorn Girl didn’t really exist. The ending with her dying was certainly iffy, but thank god they didn’t turn the whole experience into a dream, because I would have liked that even less.

I totally didn’t notice the blueish force field when they ignited the atmosphere. Will have to look out for that on my second watch.

 

[Sakonna]

Like many, I found the inclusion of the Metron so iffy from a story standpoint. Dramatically, it didn't service anything in the "Terrarium" narrative, it's just there for the larger Trekverse.

But production-wise, did they ever fucking nail it! The costume, the vocal effects, the actor they cast, the way he was lit, it was all so perfect and on-point. If the production crew hadn't so over-delivered, this would have been a HORRIBLE ending, rather than the more middle ground "eh, you didn't need it" that we got.

Something else that impressed me was how Gornette felt like the perfect bridge between ArenaGorn and StreamingGorn.

In one of the tie-in comics not too long ago, they had a Harry Mudd, and I was properly FREAKED OUT how much he looked like both Rainn Wilson AND Roger Carmel. It utterly convinced me one could have aged into the other, and I was so impressed by the skill of the artist in splitting the difference so effectively with their character design.

Same thing I felt with Gornette. Clearly evokes both eras of Gorn and shows you how one could progress into the other.

 

[The Wormhole]

I wonder, just what do actual Gorn names sound like?

There was Slar.

 

[Sakonna]

The death of Gornette was one of those moments that made me frustrated by the dramatic limitations of prequels.

Like, if this were DS9, she was definitely going to come back to the station and join the roster of recurring species outcasts. There's so much interesting stuff to do with that character, don't cut it off too quick!

But here that would make a hash of the timeline, so it has to wrap up.

I suppose we also lack the space to explore these characters, in the era of low episode counts.

 

[Okmyx]

Probably not, we still have another season and a half (3/4's?) to go.

3/5's, Lieutenant. I wish you would be more precise.

 

[Shon T'Hara]

I'm pretty sure phasers are always set to kill as a default. Otherwise, why is everyone always ordering their teams "set phasers to stun"? That'd be redundant if they're set to stun as a default.

One of the first lessons in gun safety is you always treat a gun as though it's loaded. Doesn't matter how sure you are that you pulled out the magazine and checked that the chamber is empty. If you apply that mindset to phasers, then making sure that your team has weapons set to stun instead of assuming so makes perfect sense.

 

[Sakonna]

I love the selection of pics for male & female Gorn at the top of the Memory Alpha Gorn page.

Will an image of Gornette soon supplant the lovely Gorn bride that is currently up there, or will she keep her crown?

 

[eschaton]

The death of Gornette was one of those moments that made me frustrated by the dramatic limitations of prequels.

Like, if this were DS9, she was definitely going to come back to the station and join the roster of recurring species outcasts. There's so much interesting stuff to do with that character, don't cut it off too quick!

But here that would make a hash of the timeline, so it has to wrap up.

I suppose we also lack the space to explore these characters, in the era of low episode counts.

Honestly, I thought her death was meant to harken back to the stabbing of Marritza at the end of Duet. Kira ended that episode changed, and separated from her people because she realized all Cardassians weren't evil. Ortegas goes through the same journey here. But the moment only hits if we realize that even if the protagonists have changed, society just isn't there yet.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Love these. I wonder, just what do actual Gorn names sound like?

Gurgle click.