This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Strange New Worlds 2x01 The Broken Circle.
Now that weāve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.
This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Strange New Worlds 2x01 The Broken Circle.
Now that weāve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.
As with many other posters here, I was not a fan of the āget juiced up and fight Klingonsā scenes, from basically any angle. I didnāt really care for the fight scene in general, and the stimulant stuff just seems whacky.
However, Iām inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt here, because this sort of thing is not totally foreign to Star Trek: in Amok Time, McCoy gives Kirk an injection of something which allows him to temporarily match Spockās strength and fighting ability. Itās one of the many, many āwell why donāt they always do that?ā Things that pops up in Trek and in TOS especially, and my hope is that the long term plan here is to settle that question. Perhaps this thing has some truly nasty side effects, or itās extremely addictive; in any case thereās plenty of reason not to make it standard or even permissible gear.
Branching slightly from there, itās remarkable how much sketchy stuff doctor Mābenga has already been involved in. First keeping his child in the transporter buffer and then releasing her to live in a cloud, now revealing that he keeps vials of hulk drugs about his person at all times. Thereās plenty of grounds here for us to surmise why he is no longer a CMO when he shows up in TOS.
Which leads to the third point thatās beginning to worry me about this show: weāre seeing a number of character arcs which we already know the ultimate resolution to, and itās not the resolution that I find myself rooting for as I watch these characters. Spock and Chapel definitely donāt wind up together; Spock and Chapel both become much more emotionally withdrawn; Mābenga gets himself demoted; TāPring finds a flagrantly sociopathic way out of her relationship with Spock. And,obviously, Pike suffers his horrific accident. Itās a pretty depressing slate of events inevitable occurring to a number of characters who I didnāt care about all that much before this show (excepting Spock, obviously) and have come to really enjoy watching here.
The āwell we know they wonāt dieā is an often cited rebuke for why prequels with classic characters arenāt always a great idea, but āwe know the general arc of their livesā is arguably more impactful. Most characters donāt die during their shows, and if the writing and acting is good enough I wonāt care that an outcome is preordained while Iām watching. But knowing that storylines I am emotionally invested in are doomed to end badly hits me at times when I can and will actually think about it, and Itās really not a good mix with what should fundamentally be an optimistic show.
Iām personally okay with knowing the destination, as long as the journey is worthwhile.
MāBenga was a blank slate on TOS, so Iām enjoying the character that theyāve pretty much invented wholecloth for this series (I certainly find this current direction more interesting than the story with his daughter in season one).
Chapel is another big departure from the TOS portrayal, but Iām enjoying the trajectory as she, I donāt know, āflirts with destinyā.
Spock is full of surprises as they connect the dots between the smiling Spock of āThe Cageā with the version seen on TOS proper.
Pikeā¦well, Pike is probably the one Iām least happy about, because I thought they way they had him confront his fate on āDiscoveryā was perfect, and everything theyāve done since then has diluted it somewhat for me.
But for the most part, Iām enjoying the journey, even if I know where theyāre going.
Yeah, I guess my problem isnāt knowing the destination, itās knowing that the destination is going to be pretty rough in ways that run counter to this showās general vibe. Which really is pretty similar to my broader frustrations with Discoveryās āthe distant future includes 120 years of horrific geopolitical strife where basically everything your heroes fought for falls apartā. I really want to believe in the happy ending, you know? Even when the concept of an ending doesnāt actually make real-world sense.
A lot of it does have happy endings, or at least not overtly tragic ones. Spock do goes thru it, but ends up in a very good and important place, and is deeply at peace with himself for decades after all this stuff wraps. We donāt really see how Chapel wraps up, but she gets her MD and clearly stays in Starfleet, and so far as we can tell gets over Spock. And Pike gets āthe illusion,ā of course, which is about as happy as any person could be, given his circumstances.
Trek isnāt all happy events with clear closings; there were a lot of tragic endings in TOS, for example. Even TWOK is pretty much a tragedy, taken in isolation ā Kirkās hubris in deciding to exile Khan causes a lot of death and pain. Hell, even the resurrection of Spock comes at the loss of both the Enterprise and Kirkās only son.
As long as the pain and tough times have narrative and character meaning, Iām more than OK with them happening because we know so much about how things do work out. Trek reminds, on the whole, a positive and uplifting look at how we can live.
And of course we know Uhuraās gonna turn out just fine.
Nothing ever ends, Adrian.