No clue what that means.
Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x10 - "New Life and New Civilizations"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
I assume a 'poetry' typo.
I am not normally a fan of big world-ending finales for every season. I felt Discovery and Picard were hampered by going too large at the end of each season. I'm fine with ordinary people dealing with serious, but ordinary problems. That said, I really liked the call-back to the earlier episodes here. The Vesda were a foe that deserved more explanation and development, but this felt like a rushed, conscious effort to tick a lot of boxes for the end of the season. It needed two parts to do it justice IMO.
Things I liked:
- Vesda- worthy villains
- Return to the prison -it's such a groovy setting
- Kirk and Spock bonding
- Una leading a landing party
- Pike's emotional roller coaster
- The wtf moment where the cultists blind themselves
- The Beholder origin
- Pelia's gratuitous Dr Who plug, although someone also noted on Facebook that Carol appeared with Christopher Lloyd in Taxi, so maybe it was Doc Brown! That makes it even better!
- A flimsy plot device to open up exploration next season
Things I'm ambivalent about:
- Re-using Gamble - I know they wanted to give M'Benga's reaction more emotional weight but I think it would have been better to possess another character, maybe even a cast regular, like B5's traitor.
- Blasting the portal with phasers - I feel like maybe this was a diplomatic faux pas.
Things I didn't like:
- Revealing Batel's link to the Beholder so explicitly. I think a, "Look at this, you aren't going to believe it". Cut to Batel’s face. End scene. Then, in the epilogue, Chapel could reveal what the scans showed. They took away an amazing, potential "I am your father" moment there.
- The way Batel just morphed into the statue needed to be more imaginative, as part of the fight.
- I'm sure they could have come up with a better explanation for Batel’s super powers, maybe being accidentally super-charged by some device in the prison.
The inner light homage was nice but it was obvious, so lacked the weight of the original. I think in a two-parter, spending a bit more time infiltrating the cult, and a whole episode in the prison, this could have been great. As it was, it was nice, but a bit by the numbers.
Things I liked:
- Vesda- worthy villains
- Return to the prison -it's such a groovy setting
- Kirk and Spock bonding
- Una leading a landing party
- Pike's emotional roller coaster
- The wtf moment where the cultists blind themselves
- The Beholder origin
- Pelia's gratuitous Dr Who plug, although someone also noted on Facebook that Carol appeared with Christopher Lloyd in Taxi, so maybe it was Doc Brown! That makes it even better!
- A flimsy plot device to open up exploration next season
Things I'm ambivalent about:
- Re-using Gamble - I know they wanted to give M'Benga's reaction more emotional weight but I think it would have been better to possess another character, maybe even a cast regular, like B5's traitor.
- Blasting the portal with phasers - I feel like maybe this was a diplomatic faux pas.
Things I didn't like:
- Revealing Batel's link to the Beholder so explicitly. I think a, "Look at this, you aren't going to believe it". Cut to Batel’s face. End scene. Then, in the epilogue, Chapel could reveal what the scans showed. They took away an amazing, potential "I am your father" moment there.
- The way Batel just morphed into the statue needed to be more imaginative, as part of the fight.
- I'm sure they could have come up with a better explanation for Batel’s super powers, maybe being accidentally super-charged by some device in the prison.
The inner light homage was nice but it was obvious, so lacked the weight of the original. I think in a two-parter, spending a bit more time infiltrating the cult, and a whole episode in the prison, this could have been great. As it was, it was nice, but a bit by the numbers.
None of this is so.
"poetry."
Sorry. Boy have I been schooled.
I quite like it. I think I might start describing things as "pottery in motion".
Does it make your heart go hidey-hadey, ringy-dingy and/or scooby-dooby
I think with the limited time they had, the "Inner Light" homage should've been the main focus of the episode, and then at the end we find out that Pike or Batel have been infected with something, encountered a Black Mercy-like creature, or the Vezda is trying to tempt them, and we see that the crew has been racing to save them. In the "Inner Light" reality, they could just give us future versions of the SNW cast so they aren't sidelined in the episode.
Personally, I felt the alternate reality scenes were too emotionally manipulative, the existing episode's attempt to squeeze some kind of substance and emotional weight from a rushed story, but still, it was nice seeing again what Pike's future might look like without the accident and learning a bit more about April to boot.
However, the alternate reality seems to be the one thing many liked the most about the episode, so the SNW writers were on to something, and perhaps should've expounded on it.
Personally, I felt the alternate reality scenes were too emotionally manipulative, the existing episode's attempt to squeeze some kind of substance and emotional weight from a rushed story, but still, it was nice seeing again what Pike's future might look like without the accident and learning a bit more about April to boot.
However, the alternate reality seems to be the one thing many liked the most about the episode, so the SNW writers were on to something, and perhaps should've expounded on it.
All of the above but not necessarily in that order.
This seems to be a common problem; people are not invested in the characters, so get more in to the setting, set dressing, and lore rather than any emotional beat. "Too cerebral" to borrow from executive response to the Cage, which is hilariously appropriate given both featured Pike.
I got a Foundation Vault vibe.
This isn’t a bad episode. And we do visit a strange new world. But the only real highlights are Una leading an away mission. And Sam Kirk getting some screentime.
- Korby didn’t really matter in this episode. Neither did M’Benga after going through the portal, despite it being set up as a big deal. I mean, yes, its the set up to use the phasers to open the portal. But they could have easily warped to Vadia IX and had Chapel get Pike and Batel inside.
- Really should have had Ortegas and La’an at least have a talk, if not butt heads, about what happened last week. Would give depth to their friendship, instead of simply expecting the audience to accept that they’re friends. If not that, then a scene with La’an and Spock discussing it to explore their relationship. Or even a scene between Una and La'an to mirror the scene between Una and Ortegas in "Shuttle To Kenfori". Point being, this episode dropped the ball on the followup.
- Kirk constantly reappearing in SNW would not be so bad if we knew who else could have commanded the Enterprise besides Kirk, to see why Kirk was chosen over others. Without it, we just have an arc of Kirk coveting Pike’s starship, while ignoring his own brother.
- Why did they shoehorn a Spock-Kirk connection with the mindmeld, when the Farragut captain is right there? As well as Una, Ortegas (who had her James T. Kirk moment last week) and even Sam Kirk? We know that those two are close in their future. We’ve seen it. It’s called TOS. Build the other relationships up! That's what we are watching for!
- The Inner Light-esque scenes with Pike and Batel could have, and probably should have, been their own episode.
- The boss battle was underwhelming. TBF, Star Trek does not do battles between god beings or other supernatural forces very well.
- Thought the Vezda would have been used to explain how SNW Enterprise turns into the TOS Enterprise, considering their previous appearance had them infiltrating the Enterprise’s systems. Meaning the payoff was a couple of seasons away. Oh well.
To me, this is the worst S3 since TOS. I have no idea if its on purpose or not to be parallel with TOS, or if the writer’s strike had anything to do with the quality. But it was a really uneven season.
- Korby didn’t really matter in this episode. Neither did M’Benga after going through the portal, despite it being set up as a big deal. I mean, yes, its the set up to use the phasers to open the portal. But they could have easily warped to Vadia IX and had Chapel get Pike and Batel inside.
- Really should have had Ortegas and La’an at least have a talk, if not butt heads, about what happened last week. Would give depth to their friendship, instead of simply expecting the audience to accept that they’re friends. If not that, then a scene with La’an and Spock discussing it to explore their relationship. Or even a scene between Una and La'an to mirror the scene between Una and Ortegas in "Shuttle To Kenfori". Point being, this episode dropped the ball on the followup.
- Kirk constantly reappearing in SNW would not be so bad if we knew who else could have commanded the Enterprise besides Kirk, to see why Kirk was chosen over others. Without it, we just have an arc of Kirk coveting Pike’s starship, while ignoring his own brother.
- Why did they shoehorn a Spock-Kirk connection with the mindmeld, when the Farragut captain is right there? As well as Una, Ortegas (who had her James T. Kirk moment last week) and even Sam Kirk? We know that those two are close in their future. We’ve seen it. It’s called TOS. Build the other relationships up! That's what we are watching for!
- The Inner Light-esque scenes with Pike and Batel could have, and probably should have, been their own episode.
- The boss battle was underwhelming. TBF, Star Trek does not do battles between god beings or other supernatural forces very well.
- Thought the Vezda would have been used to explain how SNW Enterprise turns into the TOS Enterprise, considering their previous appearance had them infiltrating the Enterprise’s systems. Meaning the payoff was a couple of seasons away. Oh well.
To me, this is the worst S3 since TOS. I have no idea if its on purpose or not to be parallel with TOS, or if the writer’s strike had anything to do with the quality. But it was a really uneven season.
That's one of the prices we pay for 10 episode seasons.
Those episodes a small group of people call "filler", serve an important narrative point of letting various characters shine on their own.
Well worth the price, for my part.
As long as it's the same number of episodes.
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