
Last week, when ruminating on the backdated adventures of Logicman and Bleep, we lamented the rigidity of the SNW’s writers room – that very un-Better Call Saul-like trait of failing to recognise the good stuff they’ve inadvertently seeded and change course accordingly. Then we were talking about the premature conclusion of M’Benga’s sick daughter arc. The hacks set up the intriguing sub-plot to facilitate a late season payoff and the stuck to the plan. But had Vince Gillian been in the room he might have said, “this has more storytelling potential than we realised – there’s a change to really explore M’Benga here – find out what a man will do to save a dying child” and kicked the cure into long grass.
This week, SNW killed chief engineer Hemmer. At first this seemed like an incomprehensible waste of a likeable character with bags of potential – imagine DS9’s Odo getting the chop in that show’s first season. But “All Those Who Wander” was a story concerned with Uhura and her place on the Enterprise. And it was only after Hemmer had needlessly died that we realised that he had existed only to inspire the bountiful belle on cadet rotation, and instil in her a sense of belonging. His death was but the final push for the wavering would-be communications officer. In other words, Hemmer died to bolster a character less interesting than himself.
When writing a show like SNW, surely it’s important to have a degree of intellectual dexterity – a nimbleness that allows the hacks to reflect on what’s working well on the show and change and respond when breaking new stories and revising long-term characters arcs. How much of an arsehole do you have to be not to recognise that in Bruce Horak’s Hemmer you had a classic Star Trek oddball – a loner with a rich cultural background to explore and an intellect worth poking. Did we really just lose that character so Uhura could say, “they’re not responding to hails, Captain” on the original series?
It didn’t help that the death was a tacked on bit of pathos at the tail end of a highly derivative episode which aped the Alien series to a Disney lawyer-triggering degree. This was SNW making the same mistakes that bedevilled Discovery’s early seasons – turning in an episode that was patterned on un-Trek-like franchise material, bleak, gratuitously violent, ugly and ultimately, embittering. Killing Hemmer, whom we’d only just started to get to know, was the kind of imbecilic choice Discovery would have made. Wasn’t this supposed to be a more enlightened show?
Hemmer died because he’d been hit by an inseminating blast of Gorn cum – venom that had embedded eggs under his skin. We knew what awaited him thanks to the death of a guest alien, in the John Hurt role, whose lack of humanoid appearance was designed to make the birth of the Gorn hatchlings more family friendly. But the Gorn’s animal-like aggression and monstrous bent instilled a different kind of fear to that intended by the hacks – the fear the show’s writers are stupid.
The Gorn may be reptilian but they’re also an advanced, warp-capable species. One imagines that a race that can build starships, so has a grasp of physics at least equal to our own, is also, temperament notwithstanding, a sophisticated civilisation. When we met the Alien xenomorph we understood it was nature unbound – a creature that instilled fear because it was driven by instinct. An advanced predator, yes, but not the kind one can imagine maintaining its own ship yards, or delivering papers at Universities, or forming institutes, or debating philosophy in local libraries. The Alien was a smart monster but a monster nonetheless – one that reproduced and travelled parasitically. The Gorn, we’re asked to believe, are also parasitic monsters who kill on sight as infants, but once mature become a space-faring species with territorial ambitions.
La’an, our human guide to the new Gorn, tried to square this circle on the writers’ behalf by talking about rapid maturation and all the rest of it, but it was almost impossible to reconcile the threat these creatures represented to ordered intelligence with the misunderstood Gorn captain of “Arena”. We also learned that Gorn can have a myriad of appearances as they can be born from anything, which may allow for some canon-friendly appearances from non-humanoid Gorn, but does not explain how a creature with cold blooded predatory instincts put them aside to engineering starships and warp engines and transporters, and all the other shit we only managed to build once we were separated from a state of nature by a margin of 750,000 years.
Ah, Strange New Worlds. You were doing so well…
Anomalous Readings
- Lost in this ugly affair was Spock wrestling with his human side – chiefly rage born of impotence. This was the show signalling that we’ll be getting a lot more of this in episodes to come, as the hacks see this aspect of Spock’s character as one way to differentiate him from the man we know in Kirk’s era. One assumes Sybok will complicate things when he finally debuts.
- Let’s hope the SNW hacks realise they’ve made a mistake with Hemmer and contrive to bring him back. It would be the height of laziness for S2 to begin with a certain young Scotsman assuming the fallen chief’s position.
- La’an was so traumatised by this terrible episode that she’s taken a long leave of absence. If her presence means a swathe of Gorn episodes, she need not hurry back.
- Introducing characters just to kill them is bad redshirting. Never again please, SNW.
- Next week: we cast an eye over the Pike-centred, bleep chair avoiding finale “A Quality of Mercy” and assess Strange New Worlds’ first season. Five star, folly or somewhere in-between? You will return to find out.
The Backdated Adventures of Logicman and Bleep
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.1
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.2
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.3
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.4
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.5
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.6
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.7
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.8
A horrifying vision of the future
The Wistful Musings of a Mandroid
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 1.1
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 1.2
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 1.3
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 1.4
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 1.5
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 1.6
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 1.7
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 1.8
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 1.9
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 1.10 (End of Season Special)
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 2.1
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 2.2
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 2.3
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 2.4
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 2.5
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 2.6
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 2.7
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 2.8
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 2.9
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Picard 2.10 (End of Season Afterthought)
Picard Portents
- Ed’s Star Trek: Picard Test Audience Tale (Video)
- On the Return of Star Trek (Discovery announcement, November 2015)
- The Return of Picard: A Warning from Star Trek History
Michael Burnham in the 32nd Century
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 3.1
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 3.2
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 3.3
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 3.4
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 3.5
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 3.6
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 3.7
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 3.8
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 3.9
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 3.10
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 3.11
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 3.12
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 3.13 (End of season psychosis)
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 4.1
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 4.2
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 4.3
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 4.4
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 4.5
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 4.6
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 4.7
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 4.8
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 4.9
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 4.10
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 4.11
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 4.12/4.13 (End of Season Lament)
Mick’s Calamitous 23rd Century
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 1.1/1.2
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 1.3
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 1.4
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 1.5
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 1.6
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 1.7
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 1.8
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 1.9
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 1.10
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 1.11
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 1.12
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 1.13
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 1.14
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 1.15 (End of Season Special)
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 2.1
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 2.2
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 2.3
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 2.4
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 2.5
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 2.6
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 2.7
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 2.8
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 2.9
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 2.10
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 2.11
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 2.12
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 2.13
- Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Discovery 2.14 (End of Season Post-Mortem)
Station Keeping
Teen Fan Fic
Critic’s Log – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.10 (End of Season Report)
“A Quality of Mercy” was a curious finale in what’s been a conflicted first season of Strange New Worlds. It showcased the flawed and dissonant thinking that’s characterised the series thus far – namely its desire to appropriate and remake versus the imperative that springs from any set of writers, to chart one’s own course. This is a Trek that’s desperate to be liked by its core fan base, so has tried to put bad habits to one side, but doesn’t yet have the confidence or ideas to forge its own identity. The audience will wait for inspiring, original stories featuring these characters. In the meantime, in the tenth episode, we were treated to the writers’ room psychodrama writ large.
Strange New Worlds owes its existence to a mistake – namely Discovery’s decision to end its first season by introducing Pike’s Enterprise as a fan-baiting stunt. This was a tacit acknowledgement that the show had failed to establish its own characters or generate interest in its storytelling on its merits.
The troubled TNG did not succumb to this instinct in its first year – there was no Captain Kirk found floating in statis in “The Neutral Zone” to entice viewers to return for season two. Spock didn’t guest star in TNG until its fifth season, by which time it was a pop culture phenomenon in its own right.
Whenever a burgeoning prequel or sequel series reaches for its parent for support, it shows a dependency on that series for ideas and attention. Substance is imported from a readymade source. “A Quality of Mercy” could have been a show about SNW’s characters in a new situation. Instead, it used an alternate timeline conceit to revisit TOS’s “Balance of Terror” (which is dangerously close to Enterprise’s finale being locked inside a TNG episode). Only it in final moments did it reconnect with its story.
SNW is a show desperate to re-write TOS canon. Here, it flirted with the idea, though with the reassuring promise of an end-of-episode reset. We’re stuck with Pike’s cruel fate and it was reasonable that the finale would address this as its been part of the character’s makeup since the first episode. “A Quality of Mercy” ostensibly wanted to explore the consequences of Pike altering the timeline to save himself and reached the fan-friendly conclusion that he could not. But that will to overwrite TOS had to be dealt with somehow – one could feel the tension – so here was an inconsequential fan fic reprisal. The problem? It wasn’t strictly the same set of events.
Pike from the TOS Movie-era – the 2280s, showed up to tell Young Pike that if he changed the future there would be consequences. Well, of course there would, but the one that seemed to matter in the grand scheme of things was it would mean Pike, not Kirk, would face the Romulans attacking the Federation’s neutral zone outposts years later, and despite enlisting the help of a shark jumping and somewhat cavalier James T. Kirk, the encounter would end not in mutual respect and understanding (and safe demise of the Romulans) but a declaration of war on the Federation from a successfully summoned Romulan fleet. Pike, it seems, paid the price for his more cautious approach; a non-aggressive strategy that gave the uninjured Romulan ship enough time to bring many more warbirds into the fight, thereby causing matters to escalate. Kirk had been bold and was lucky. Pike wasn’t. Story of the Pike’s life.
But everything was weird about this alternate timeline. Why did Ortegas have the same hatred of Romulans as the Enterprise’s original navigator? Does everyone who sits in that chair have family issues relating to the pointy eared bastards? Why was the Romulan ship implicitly a different one to that which Kirk chased? These were different kinds of Romulans – the ridged variety, and there was no sense that the Roluman commander was the thoughtful spacefarer played so memorably by Mark Lenard in the original episode. His performance established Romulans as thinkers and tacticians, just as Leonard Nimoy was so instrumental in framing our notion of Vulcans as dispassionate logicians. The commander Pike faced was less impressive. SNW’s writers will say, “alternate timeline!” but why cherry pick in this way? Why retain some story elements and characters and substitute others?
The new Kirk – another stunt, whose introduction is far too early in run of this series, was also curiously cavalier – more of a caricature of the Kirk we know. Paul Wesley deserves credit for not imitating William Shatner but there wasn’t enough of the character’s essence in his portrayal to make Kirk identifiable. Had the script not done so, we would have been none the wiser.
Wesley is set to return as a younger version of the character in season two. If the point is to add urgency to Pike’s ongoing predicament – his would-be replacement shadowing him as the inevitably of his accident becomes apparent, then it’s an interesting choice by the writers. But Kirk’s presence always keeps the threat of canon ruination in the mix – the original series just a little too close for comfort. It might be different if we had a cast iron assurance from SNW that their show would seamlessly link up with TOS – but that promise has been curiously unforthcoming.
“A Quality of Mercy” was in some ways typical of SNW’s first season. It was a riff on a pre-existing episode or story, which was true for much of the season’s output, and its focus on pillaging Star Trek lore meant that original elements were neglected.
Pike would have a lot more scope for development if he wasn’t saddled with foreknowledge of the future. La’an, problematic heritage notwithstanding, exists as a pipeline for retconned Gorn stories. Hemmer, who had limitless potential as an original character unencumbered by canon, was prematurely killed off to introduce jeopardy to a crew that can endure few shocks given their timelocked status. And Una, poor underused Una, was employed as a cliffhanger in this episode – her Illyrian status having been somehow discovered by Pike’s girlfriend (perhaps the Captain talks in his sleep) when she’d been absent for the same offence throughout this alt-timeline story. How much greater would the impact have been if Una had been pivotal to “A Quality of Mercy’s” story, showcasing her importance to Pike.
Ultimately, the first season of SNW ended on a bum note. The series has promising characters who are rightly the focus of its episodic storytelling. But to differentiate itself from fan fiction, season two will need to produce original stories that advance these characters and carve out a space for them that isn’t just a waiting area for the Star Trek we know and love. That’s a tough gig for a direct prequel (and the reason why none but the most creatively assured should do one) but, and I’m sorry to keep going on about it, it can be done as Better Call Saul proves. That show, with deftness, patience and awareness of its own unique qualities and potentialities, has taken an often surprising (and leisurely) route to known territory. SNW writers take note.
Anomalous Readings
The Backdated Adventures of Logicman and Bleep
A horrifying vision of the future
The Wistful Musings of a Mandroid
Picard Portents
Michael Burnham in the 32nd Century
Mick’s Calamitous 23rd Century
Station Keeping
Teen Fan Fic
Tags: A Quality of Mercy, Critic's log, review, Season One, Star Trek, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds