Star Trek

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – All Those Who Wander

  • Title: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – All Those Who Wander
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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds overcorrects the follow up to the all too cute “The Elysian Kingdom” with a horror episode that brings back the Gorn and sees the exit of not one but two major characters. Certainly better than the previous episode, “All Those Who Wander” goes a bit too far to the other side of the spectrum with an Alien-esque story of Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and a handful of other character skulking around a crashed ship avoiding rabid alien creatures who impregnate their hosts and burst out of their bodies. The results are memorable, if nearly as far from classic Trek tone as the previous episode.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – The Elysian Kingdom

  • Title: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – The Elysian Kingdom
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“The Elysian Kingdom” is the first major misstep in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ First Season. In what feels like a holodeck episode (set in a time before the holodeck existed), most of the Starfleet officers on the ship start acting like characters in Rukiya‘s (Sage Arrindell) favorite story. The sets of the Enterprise get marginally redressed to act as locations in the book and only Dr. M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) and Hemmer (Bruce Horak) are aware that something odd is happening. The end goal of the series is to write Rukiya off the show in such a bizarre deux machina that you feel disappointed given all the set-up over the course of the season. As for the actors playing out the tale with limited sets and props, the episode has a community theater feel to it that doesn’t fit with anything we’ve seen before (and hopefully won’t see again).

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – The Serene Squall

  • Title: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – The Serene Squall
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Although the episode relies on a twist you’ll likely see coming, “The Serene Squall” has the feel of a classic Trek adventure with the Enterprise fighting space pirates on the edge of Federation space. Themes from the season continue to be played out here including Spock (Ethan Peck) and  T’Pring‘s (Gia Sandhu) relationship and the tease of Nurse Chapel‘s (Jess Bush) feelings for the Enterprise’s Science Officer. Jesse James Keitel is well-cast here as the main guest-star whose character needs to be insightful and empathetic to Spock but also to turn on a dime when the plot calls for it.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach

  • Title: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach
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“Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach” has the feel of a mix between a classic Star Trek episode (with the captain making sweet, sweet love to an alien woman) and one from Star Trek: The Next Generation (dealing with alien customs in conflict with Starfleet directives and human morality) when Captain Pike (Anson Mount) is reunited with a woman he saved years ago. Saving Alora (Lindy Booth) again leads to problematic discoveries about her idyllic world involving a chosen child (Ian Ho) who is destined to save their world albeit by paying a terrible price which is hidden from Starfleet for most of the episode.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Spock Amok

  • Title: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Spock Amok
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Following the tense and dramatic “Memento Mori,” Star Trek: Strange New Worlds shift gears for a far lighter episode featuring the Enterprise in space dock that turns out to be the best episode of the series so far. The title of the episode comes from the arrival of Spock’s fiancé T’Pring (Gia Sandhu). In an attempt to bridge the gap between them and understand each other’s position, the Vulcans take part in a ritual that unintentionally swaps their consciousness into each other’s bodies. Despite neither being happy about it, hijinks ensue as Spock (who is actually T’Pring in Spock’s body) is needed in delicate trade negotiations with the R’ongovian Protectorate and T’Pring (who is actually Spock in T’Pring’s body) is called into duty to help with a Vulcan who will only meet with her.

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