Star Trek: Strange New Gorns

[Corvinus85]

I never watched TOS. Were Chapel and Spock a thing? It seems like that's what this episode suggested, though I liked Spock's and T'Pring's plot in this episode and the development of Vulcan romantic relationships.

[Lord Varys]

Must say it would have been infitely better if Uhura had gotten Chapel's personality. That would have been a much better fit with TOS in mind.

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

I never watched TOS. Were Chapel and Spock a thing? It seems like that's what this episode suggested, though I liked Spock's and T'Pring's plot in this episode and the development of Vulcan romantic relationships.

Chapel and Spock were never a thing, but Chapel certainly had a thing for Spock.

They certainly play around with how Chapel will eventually develop her thing for Spock - but as we have already said in this thread Chapel is betrothed to marry scientist-turned-robot Dr. Roger Korby when she first shows up in TOS - and she only joins the Kirk Enterprise to find him.

Also, of course, Spock ends up not marrying T'Pring ... but that doesn't stop them from including her into the show/Spock's life.

They clearly play around with that in this show, and my guess is that Chapel's 'right guy' is going to turn up eventually, possibly in a future season, when she mets Roger Korby on one of his earlier digs or something along those lines. The guy is a kind of alien archaelogist.

Very sad in this episode was Spock's description as Sarek's son - the guy had two sons. Where the hell is Sybok???

Also - talking about the Romulans as a party who cares about and deals with third parties is weird as hell when the gang still doesn't know how they look like.

Anybody else also feeling how weird this talk about 'the Klingon War' is in this era?

But I must say - this was a pretty fun episode. It is actually not that hard to make fun Star Trek. And I must say I really like La'an at this point.

[Jaxom 1974]

10 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I never watched TOS. Were Chapel and Spock a thing? It seems like that's what this episode suggested, though I liked Spock's and T'Pring's plot in this episode and the development of Vulcan romantic relationships.

Answered already. But yeah, there was definitely an unrequited love by Chapel for Spock.

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Must say it would have been infitely better if Uhura had gotten Chapel's personality. That would have been a much better fit with TOS in mind.

Chapel and Spock were never a thing, but Chapel certainly had a thing for Spock.

They certainly play around with how Chapel will eventually develop her thing for Spock - but as we have already said in this thread Chapel is betrothed to marry scientist-turned-robot Dr. Roger Korby when she first shows up in TOS - and she only joins the Kirk Enterprise to find him.

Also, of course, Spock ends up not marrying T'Pring ... but that doesn't stop them from including her into the show/Spock's life.

They clearly play around with that in this show, and my guess is that Chapel's 'right guy' is going to turn up eventually, possibly in a future season, when she mets Roger Korby on one of his earlier digs or something along those lines. The guy is a kind of alien archaelogist.

Very sad in this episode was Spock's description as Sarek's son - the guy had two sons. Where the hell is Sybok???

Also - talking about the Romulans as a party who cares about and deals with third parties is weird as hell when the gang still doesn't know how they look like.

But I must say - this was a pretty fun episode. It is actually not that hard to make fun Star Trek. And I must say I really like La'an at this point.

I have nonissues with Cadet Uhura and them developing who she becomes...likely through the people she's surrounded by currently.  She doesn't need the brash ess of Chapel at this point, though it's obvious there is more to her bubbling below the surface.

Sybok was disowned and not discussed until Trek V, so no reason to mention him...I mean, hidden siblings are a thing for Spock, eh?

The use of Romulans as a threat is canon redux at the moment.  Of course, the existence is known of...but before the reveal in TOS, I can't remember how active they were in the galaxy...

The Spock/T'Pring stuff is actually a nice piece of storytelling.  It gives so much more weight to her single appearance in TOS when she elects to chose another, rather than wait for Spock any longer.

 

I'm still not 100% on the characters on this show, but I'm oddly drawn to every single one of the actors portraying them...Anson Mount's portrayal of a blend of Kirk and Picard is just right and what one would expect for a Captain on the frontier of the Federation. 

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

I have nonissues with Cadet Uhura and them developing who she becomes...likely through the people she's surrounded by currently.  She doesn't need the brash ess of Chapel at this point, though it's obvious there is more to her bubbling below the surface.

I meant that with what we know about TOS Chapel it may have been better to have Uhura with Chapel's personality and Chapel herself as a more reserved person.

1 hour ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Sybok was disowned and not discussed until Trek V, so no reason to mention him...I mean, hidden siblings are a thing for Spock, eh?

True enough, but 'the son of Sarek' implies there is only one. And was Sarek already disowned at that time? We don't know and nothing earlier established should have made it so.

It was already a big letdown that he didn't feature in Burnham's memories of her childhood on Vulcan.

1 hour ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

The use of Romulans as a threat is canon redux at the moment.  Of course, the existence is known of...but before the reveal in TOS, I can't remember how active they were in the galaxy...

They didn't have any contact since the Earth-Romulan war. For that thing to work we have to pretend that the Romulans either act through intermediaries if there were actually talks with a third party ... or nobody actually wonders why they look like Vulcans.

[Jaxom 1974]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

 

They didn't have any contact since the Earth-Romulan war. For that thing to work we have to pretend that the Romulans either act through intermediaries if there were actually talks with a third party ... or nobody actually wonders why they look like Vulcans.

An older chronology book, albeit non canon even if it was an official book (I think...I'm not going to dig it out right now), indicated the peace accord was done through audio only...not the best source or convincing, but it could work...

[Lord Varys]

2 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

An older chronology book, albeit non canon even if it was an official book (I think...I'm not going to dig it out right now), indicated the peace accord was done through audio only...not the best source or convincing, but it could work...

That's straight from 'Balance of Terror' from TOS. The claim there is that the war happened so early in the timeline that they didn't have visual ship-to-ship communication - which was retconned by Enterprise, of course, but they at least tried to keep the 'nobody has seen a Romulan before' plot, having them use drones and patsies.

Basically, SNW should just not mention the Romulans at all - or if they have to then as a closed up, isolated, silent power bloc in their neighborhood - a kind of North Korea in space. But that episode implied that some folks our guys talk with actually may be in direct contact with the Romulans - and that's just odd.

The Federation wanting access to space which allows them to circumvent the Star Empire certainly does make sense, though.

[RumHam]

5 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

True enough, but 'the son of Sarek' implies there is only one.

Does it? Worf was the son of Mough and he had a brother. Though that was also presumably a retcon.

[fionwe1987]

It's entirely legitimate to refer to A as the "son of B", even if B has another son. You can  say "one of the sons of B" to refer to A, but you don't have to, and often won't, depending on context. 

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, RumHam said:

Does it? Worf was the son of Mough and he had a brother. Though that was also presumably a retcon.

Well, I heard it as 'the son of Sarek'. They could have left room for Sybok's existence there by qualifying Spock as the half-breed son of Sybok or something along those lines. Anything indicating the man does have (at least) two sons.

[sifth]

So wow, Star Trek is actually allowed to be fun again. This was always my biggest issue with Discovery; the nearly completely and almost total lack of light hearted fun episodes. Anyway, after last weeks action packed episode, this was a nice change of pace. I'm not totally against action and explosions in Star Trek, we just don't need them every week. There are other types of stories to be told and sometimes those stories can and should involve people talk out their problems, like mature adults.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

SNW: S1 E5

Funny as hell. Great episode. 

Sam Kirk is still MIA. I assume he was horribly injured playing Enterprise Bingo.  

[RumHam]

I decided to blow through all the movies before I cancel Paramount+. Strange New Worlds is good so far but it's not appointment TV for me, I will catch up when Lower Decks comes back.

I almost skipped The Motion Picture because I hate it. I'm glad I didn't though it's not as dull as I remembered so far. Everyone looks so young. I noticed Bones says Chapel became a doctor.

I'm not a big TOS fan, I've only watched it through once but I always loved the original crew's movies. Well most of them anyway.

Edit: Finished the first movie, Paramount+ decides to start Star Trek III, even though they have Wrath of Kahn.

[fionwe1987]

So that was a pretty obvious Le Guin ripoff, and the "twist" was pretty heavily telegraphed. It managed to be an effective episode, though, in terms of Pike's and M'banga's arcs. 

[DaveSumm]

So far this is the best Star Trek since DS9. 6 for 6 for me.

[Corvinus85]

On 6/5/2022 at 7:48 PM, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

SNW: S1 E5

Funny as hell. Great episode. 

Sam Kirk is still MIA. I assume he was horribly injured playing Enterprise Bingo.  

Sam Kirk finally showed up again in E6 and had to suffer the scorching stare of La'an. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

On 6/10/2022 at 4:40 PM, Corvinus85 said:

Sam Kirk finally showed up again in E6 and had to suffer the scorching stare of La'an. 

Does mental anguish and intimidation count as episode trauma? I'm counting it as episode trauma.

Did you see how he bravely ran away? "I'm conflict averse", he says. Yeah, no shit. Under that blue uniform he's a mass of burn bandages and scar tissue. He's had so many concussions he doesn't know what he's saying like, 90% of the time. 

My praise of the series' production values notwithstanding, I loved the "puh-chik" sci fi noise that added to the opening of Mr Spocks grey container which was very obviously a plastic food container from Target. You go, Strange New worlds! 

I cannot praise Pike's coiffure enough. Top. Shelf. Simply breathtaking, man. 

Great episode. Definitely not typical ST. 

[Lord Varys]

On 6/10/2022 at 11:27 PM, fionwe1987 said:

So that was a pretty obvious Le Guin ripoff, and the "twist" was pretty heavily telegraphed. It managed to be an effective episode, though, in terms of Pike's and M'banga's arcs. 

While that is true, I still enjoyed it. Although this kind of setting is something you want to get back to. How does this world work? Is their magical medical tech also dependent on the child torture machine? If they need floating cities because their planet is literally full of acid and lava why do they not colonize a proper M class world?

Are events in this episode triggering something in this regard? That's the kind of thing one really would like to know.

Although the context at least explains why Pike isn't going to look for a cure for Delta radiation sickness there.

[sifth]

Yea, this story was basically The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. I mean it certainly isn't the first Trek episode to ripoff classic literature, but it always makes me laugh, when I can easily see where things are going. It's like the writers think no one on the planet reads books anymore.

The episode was pretty good, despite the twist being very easy to predict and all of the characters were fun and likeable still. I hope Hemmer gets an episode focusing on my soon however, the show seems to be mostly ignoring him a lot of the time; Sam Kirk as well.

[Jaxom 1974]

Wait.  Do people think the twist was something other than Pike not finding a way to save the child...?  And then still walking away without any attempt?

(Regardless, this was one of the more classic style Trek episodes...SNW is absolutely delivering in terms of "Trekness".)

 

Also, thinking about it a little more, I know I've been critical of the role that Chapel has here (not Chapel herself!), but we aren't talking enough about M'Benga.  He's (obviously) the replacement for Philip Boyce as the CMO, but why is he playing second fiddle to McCoy in later years...?

[RumHam]

46 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Also, thinking about it a little more, I know I've been critical of the role that Chapel has here (not Chapel herself!), but we aren't talking enough about M'Benga.  He's (obviously) the replacement for Philip Boyce as the CMO, but why is he playing second fiddle to McCoy in later years...?

Maybe he gets demoted when they find out he put the ship at risk by hiding his daughter in the transporter?

I also wonder if maybe we'll eventually see Scotty learn about that and make a little mental note about it.