Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 4x04 - "A Case of Chiaroscuro"
You know that if it were some totally new Klingon leader with a mind sifter, there would be many shouts of "Those silly, shortsighted writers could have made that character Kor! They know nothing about Star Trek lore..."
Yeah. Totally agree.
Apologies. It just felt like two.gawd, they made a second part to that turd?!
(Hint: “These Are the Voyages” is just one episode.
Fans refuse now.
Kor was believably Kor to me.
I'm still running with Augment Virus attempted cure theory, they worked on trying to cure it almost as soon as it became a wide enough spread issue in the Empire, the DCS Klingon design is because it over-compensated on reactivating suppressed genes resulting in their almost proto-Klingon appearance. Currently we're in a stable cure era but then the virus adapts and re-smooths them in time for their TOS appearances before the finally fix it firmly in time for TMP. If essentially every Klingon is a carrier then the virus mutating turning them into the smooth heads can happen very shortly before TOS allowing SNW to use their Klingons right up until the end.
I'm still running with Augment Virus attempted cure theory, they worked on trying to cure it almost as soon as it became a wide enough spread issue in the Empire, the DCS Klingon design is because it over-compensated on reactivating suppressed genes resulting in their almost proto-Klingon appearance. Currently we're in a stable cure era but then the virus adapts and re-smooths them in time for their TOS appearances before the finally fix it firmly in time for TMP. If essentially every Klingon is a carrier then the virus mutating turning them into the smooth heads can happen very shortly before TOS allowing SNW to use their Klingons right up until the end.
Just finished watching the episode. I thought it was... fine. I agree with some of the sentiment I've seen that it's Casablana without the gravitas that makes it Casablanca. The setting was interesting enough, and I liked the supporting plot of living under Klingon occupation, but when you are taking so much from such a famous film, it's easy to cross the line from "homage" to "rip-off" and I think they crossed it in a few places. The La Marseillaise scene was a step too far in my opinion, as it's so famous and frankly just not done as well here. I feel both slightly annoyed about Una's doppleganger hand-wave, but at the same time I also can live with it, it's not the point of the story. The reveal of M'Benga's additional murder spree is wild though, it's such a weird part of his character.
The B-Plot, I must say, I thought was useless. It didn't fit in at all with the A-Plot really, and wanted to show La'an as being paranoid, only to reveal she was right all along, which makes the scenes of Spock thinking she was paranoid... just wrong? They also don't tell her what Scotty is up to, even though she's security chief, and Chapel's friend on the Yang must be one of the worst captains ever. They disobey treaty to save a ship in need, okay that's fine, but they then try and cover it up, realize they screwed up, rope Chapel into helping making her complicit, who then drags La'an into it. Instead of taking responsibility and -- as we've seen from other instances, probably getting a slap on the wrist -- the captain of the Yang has put her own career on the line, as well as Chapel's, La'an's, and probably Pike's to an extent. Not a great example of the type of ship he's running.
The B-Plot, I must say, I thought was useless. It didn't fit in at all with the A-Plot really, and wanted to show La'an as being paranoid, only to reveal she was right all along, which makes the scenes of Spock thinking she was paranoid... just wrong? They also don't tell her what Scotty is up to, even though she's security chief, and Chapel's friend on the Yang must be one of the worst captains ever. They disobey treaty to save a ship in need, okay that's fine, but they then try and cover it up, realize they screwed up, rope Chapel into helping making her complicit, who then drags La'an into it. Instead of taking responsibility and -- as we've seen from other instances, probably getting a slap on the wrist -- the captain of the Yang has put her own career on the line, as well as Chapel's, La'an's, and probably Pike's to an extent. Not a great example of the type of ship he's running.
So, I was actually curious about this, which episodes are considered the two back-to-back worst (I also like looking at things like which back-to-back episodes had the biggest jump in quality from really bad to really good). I went and look at the IMDB scores, which while I don't think are the best rating system in the world, is a decent resource for getting a general idea of episode trends.
Basically, these two are by far the lowest rating SNW episodes thus far (which surprises me, I didn't think one was nearly as bad as last weeks), but it's not the worst back-to-back pairing overall. The short answer is that both Discovery Season 4 and Starfleet Academy Season 1 are so poorly rated overall that there's several pairings in there that would beat this as it currently stands, I think the worst worst is probably episodes 2 and 3 of SFA.
Again, I think comparing shows like this is a bit of comparing apples to oranges, but it does show that there's a general discontent with this season thus far.
Yeah, honestly, props to Babs Olusanmukon for delivering that bizarre speech with a straight face. Occasionally I try to imagine just dropping in for a random episode of this show as a casual viewer. In this one, I would find myself trying to figure out why the ship's doctor is casually confessing to a mass slaughter, seemingly out of nowhere, right at the end.
A lot of time spent going basically nowhere. I think the word "filler" gets thrown around too freely but in this case, it's kind of applicable.
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It may not be indicative of much in the bigger picture, really. ImdB ratings are notoriously subject to passing fads.
Comparison will always rob you of joy.
Nope.
Don’t forget Tom Paris and Nick Locarno (shout out to LD for making good hay outta that). I think it would have been great if they had Romijn play both Una and Chapel while doing the voice of the computer. I mean they like to brag about their big VFX budgets…go wild.
As for the ridges…blame DS9. They perpetrated the original retcon by giving Kor, Koloth and Kang ridges in the first place. Then doubled down with the joke in “Trials..” which gave the opening for Enterprise to show/explain it. All they had to do was keep the 3 TOS Klingons smooth headed, just older and roll with the idea that there are two different types of Klingons and have people be used to it. Sort of like smooth headed Romulans vs bumpy headed Romulans. Or the fact we have at least 3 distinctive types of Gorn…TOS/Lower Decks Gorn, Enterprise Gorn, and the Xeno-Gorn from SNW.
and I thought the guy playing Kor was too stiff. It’s a bit of the same problem with Wesley-Kirk. Neither have the swagger to match up with the versions of the characters we see in TOS and DS9.
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There was literally no reason at all to do this. The design of Klingons evolving between periods of Trek is not a thing of interest to the bulk of the audience, even an audience as nerdy as Trek's. DS9 treated it like a non-issue that did not require retconning because that's what it was.
Not according to Enterprise. They retconned the retcon being a retcon.
Most stories are unnecessary. It was a good story. One of Enterprises best imo.
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