Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x01 "The Broken Circle"

::: spoiler Logline A distress call from Lt. Noonien-Singh compels Spock to disobey orders and take the USS Enterprise and its crew into disputed space, risking renewed hostilities with the Klingons in a bid to aid their shipmate. :::

Written by Henry Alonso Myers & Akiva Goldsman

Directed by Chris Fisher

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Right now, the plan is to post the /c/startrek discussion when the episode drops on Thursdays. Once the global community has had some time to watch and digest what they've seen, the /c/daystrominstitute discussion will go live on Sundays for a more in-depth analysis. This is subject to change as we evaluate what works best for the community as a whole.

jalanhenning ,
@jalanhenning@startrek.website avatar

Upon further reflection, I feel like this episode undermines the plot of "The Galileo Seven". Spock is a very able commander in 2x01 when years later he struggles on an away mission…

GetRidOfWires ,

I liked it, but it didn’t have enough Pike.

klinkertinlegs ,

Always need more Pike!

aufsichtsrat ,

I loved that they gave Dr. M'Benga some screentime front and center and showed that he can throw down if necessary, even if it was with the help of some super serum stuff. And while I even loved his (and Nurse Chapel's ) elaborate fight scene and enjoyed the way they filmed it, I'm also not sure if it quite fits with Star Trek. Just not sure yet with the excessive slow motion. The camera angles however were some great artistic choice. But overall one great start to season 2.

StreetcornPips ,

My gut feeling is that with a couple changes this episode would have hung together better-

  1. Have them take a shuttle instead of the Enterprise. This lowers the stakes for our command crew and simply makes more sense than half the crew (that wasn't on leave) agreeing to steal a ship. It also means they need to figure out a different way to deal with the fake Federation ship at the end of the episode is some way other than 'shoot it with bigger guns'
  2. Have Chapel and M'Benga do something within their character strengths to escape instead of magic drug that lets them hand-to-hand fight their way through a dozen or more Klingons.

That said, there were a lot of things I DID like about the episode, including the Klingon Captain at the end and the new Chief Engineer.

abbiistabbii ,
@abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Pelia is like “I have been alive for hundreds of years and I’m going to make that everyone else’s problem.”

Continuumguy ,

Thoughts and observations written as I watch- I’ll be putting this on both Reddit and Lemmy, since infinity diversity/infinity combinations:

  • Wheeee, NCC-1701 in the Star Trek tag!
  • Previously: Last season happened.
  • Little ships flying!
  • Wonder who the lawyer that Una and Pike have tried to reach is.
  • Oh, hey, the Vulcan musical instrument whose name I can’t remember!
  • “Fascinating.” “Isn’t that usually his line?”
  • The fellowship on archeological medicine? Is that a reference to Dr. Korby?
  • “We must steal the Enterprise.” Buddy, if I had a nickel every time someone had to steal the Enterprise, I’d have several nickels.
  • Lt. Mitchell gunning for series regular next year with how much screen time she’s had early on this episode.
  • Okay, having Carol Kane is already paying dividends.
  • And, yeah, Carol Kane doesn’t need alien makeup to be an alien. She’s already an alien.
  • I’m still not sure if the emphasis one the warp catch phrase is amazing or annoying, but this scene was funny.
  • KLINGON UPDATE: RIDGES!
  • So clearly La’An’s augmented ancestors were genetically engineered to drink a lot. Which, y’know what? Fair.
  • Ah, the borderlands, where utopian rules go away and everyone becomes a Ferengi.
  • Congratulations to Uhura on graduating from the Academy.
  • Ah, the old “I have technology that I’m totally not making up that will blow you up” bluff!
  • New transporter chief?
  • Okay, so the angry borderlands people are trying to do some sort of false flag thing.
  • Redundant Klingon organs, the old standby.
  • Roided-up doctors can tell you what bones they broke as they break them.
  • These are obviously Discovery sets.
  • This action scene, while well-done, is way too long.
  • A D7!
  • “We’ve gotten out of worse.” “No, not really!”
  • “This I’ve got to see!”
  • I wonder if “Lanthanite” is a synonym for “El-Aurian”
  • Pelia knowing that being on the Enterprise means adventure is further proof that those ships are goddamn weirdness magnets.
  • Gorn. Yes, it stretches canon but fuck it the Gorn are awesome we’ll come up with an explanation later.
  • “For Nichelle”
  • Overall, while not one of the better episodes, it still was a good start to the season. It wrapped up one of the hanging threads of last year (La’An), we continued to see some of Young Spock’s struggles with his emotions before he became the more-Vulcan Spock that Nimoy was in the main TOS series, and we got our first look at Carol Kane as the nutty new engineer. Overall, I’ll call that a win!
triktrek ,

Regarding Nurse Chapel almost dying - this is one of the TV/movie tropes that I think is such a cheap and terrible device and I am tired of it. Discovery was full of these scenes where they make you believe a main character really almost died, only to survive after all, and having their crew mates weep for them (I am looking at you Burnham). There are much better ways to create good drama.

bpickle ,
  1. I am 100% here for the chaotic energy that Carol Kane is going to bring to this show.
  2. The Klingon captain had exactly the right amount of swagger and sassiness that a TOS-era Klingon captain is supposed to have. I’m glad that they’re moving on from some of the Discovery Klingon characterization while also resisting the urge to jump right to them behaving like TNG Klingons.
Corgana ,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

Hemmer was my favorite character from season one, and is very difficult to replace in my heart. But Carol Kane is one of those actors you just can’t help but love to see on screen (in any capacity). It’s going to be very hard to be upset knowing she’ll be around.

Razzleberry ,
@Razzleberry@lemmy.world avatar

Ortegas inverted her controller settings as everyone should 🎮

miraih ,
@miraih@kbin.social avatar

Honestly Inverted Stick for Flight controls makes so much more sense on controller because that's what you would do with an actual flight stick

Navi ,

Enjoyed pretty much everything in this episode except the magic super steroids. The sequence went on for so long… I assumed that I had forgotten something from last series because there’s no way they would have had this to hand the whole time and never thought to use it during any one of the many life and death emergencies?

That aside. Loved the rest of the episode and looking forward to where things go from here (plus really really happy to have weekly Trek again!)

scarecrw ,

there’s no way they would have had this to hand the whole time and never thought to use it during any one of the many life and death emergencies?

Ah, yes, the star trek classic!

I do agree, though. It was too long and too effective. A quick burst to make their way past the medical guards and into a turbolift would have been more believable and better paced.

CeruleanRuin ,
@CeruleanRuin@lemmy.one avatar

I want to see some serious side effects from that play out to explain why people don’t use it more often.

thecdc1995 ,

Reminds me of a character in The Expanse who gets illegal hormone gland implants that can be activated for a burst of heightened awareness. The drawback is twofold. When the activation wears off the user experiences debilitating nausea for several minutes. Over the long term the illegal part comes into play because you know those things aren’t rated for health and safety. This character requires regular blood transfusions/dialysis due to toxin buildup from shoddy workmanship.

Anyway, that’s an entire tangent. I’m excited to see if there are interesting complications from a doctor who’s strapped with combat drugs of questionable ethics.

kallisti ,

So, bit of a mixed bag. I enjoyed Spock smashing bloodwine, and the general idea of the plot, decent Klingons etc. I did not enjoy unexplained spacewar drugs, feels like a very non-Star Trek thing.

That being said, I really wish they would stop harping the “do the thing do the thing” angle every time anyone sits in the Captain’s chair. It’s been in every show now and it’s just such a tired and stale joke that it’s moved over time from being funny, to tiring, to outright annoying.

abba2566 ,

+1 for the complaint on the ‘do the thing’ comment. I feel like it’s because engage/make it so have become somewhat of a meme from Picard in TNG and they’re looking to replicate that.

But the idea every captain has their thing is one seemingly from the new Treks. In the past series, engage is used frequently by Kirk, Janeway and Sisko. (Kirk also frequently uses warp speed Mr sulu, ahead warp factor 1, take her out, first star to the left and straight on till morning etc.) They’ve been really pushing ‘let’s fly’ from Discovery, but it’s a terrible line and trying to force it just makes it cringy. I wish they’d used that time to expand the stealing the Enterprise plot a little more.

Navi ,

The big problem with the joke here is it’s totally the wrong moment. They’ve disobeyed orders and “stolen” the enterprise but haven’t actually gotten away yet… don’t just sit there messing around!

bookish1303 ,

I think this got things off to a reasonable start, but it doesn't feel like the strongest episode out of the gate. Maybe it's because the show deliberately chooses not take on the cliffhanger of the last season in the first episode. Starting the season with only part of the cast undertaking the mission I think also makes the episode feel a bit slight.

It's also a bit of a darker episode than the last season, but I'm not sure if engaging with the Klingon civil war aftermath is actually necessary in this episode. In fact, leaving out the Klingon stuff here would make it a bit less stodgy to me. I guess there is some curiosity as to what SNW characters were doing during the war, but it really feels like here, the only reason they framed this entire episode around the war was so that M'Benga and Chapel could juice themselves up with a substance that they never quite introduce before using it and Die Hard Klingons for a chunk of the episode. There's maybe some M'Benga trauma, but giving the character another trauma moment where some (particularly Ortegas) remain comparatively lightly characterized feels...meh.

It's probably all the Discovery elements, both in plot and in set design on screen, that make me feel this way, but I was hoping that Discovery would learn the best lessons from Strange New Worlds. This episode has me slightly worried that instead of that, Strange New Worlds may be learning some bad lessons from Discovery. That said I'm hoping things get better across the season. I thought this was good but just not quite what I wanted from the season opener.

NickofSantaCruz ,

The M’Benga-and-Chapel-are-Max-Payne sequence went on far too long: only one group aboard the ship had weapons (and Stormtrooper accuracy) of any kind? I’d have preferred a stealthier sequence: after reprogramming the transponder, they use a series of Jeffries tubes to get to the airlock with the intent of opening it to escape but the ship takes off to ruin that plan.

Other than that, it was a decent episode to get the season going. Spock’s emotional journey will be a focal point of the season, which I’m okay with. SPECTRE The Broken Circle Gang is probably going to show up again and I wonder if we’ll eventually see some TOS villains retconned to be members. Carol Kane will be fun and with what was said of her species, I’m betting on her making at least two ENT references during the season.

Interesting that the false-flag ship is Crossfield-class: the saucer is a clear match but the drive section is completely different. Were the Discovery and Glenn modified from that spec to fit the spore drive research project or was the ship we saw a wartime refit of the class?

arod48 ,

So Die Hard on a spaceship? We did that with Starship Mine already but I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing it again. Is Starfleet’s version of the Hippocratic oath “First, do no harm, unless you have to, in which case go hard.”?

As for the Crossfield-Class, I thought it might either be that the classification of Discovery made them change the format of it for obfuscation purposes. Either that or they built that ship from salvaged parts from the war, and the saucer/transponder was from a Crossfield, and Uhura was simply reading from the transponder code the ship class.

UESPA_Sputnik ,
@UESPA_Sputnik@lemmy.world avatar

Were the Discovery and Glenn modified from that spec to fit the spore drive

Yes. IIRC that was stated in of the first handful of Discovery episodes. (possibly the one where they encountered the Glenn?)

cyberic ,
@cyberic@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Is this post tagged NSFW for spoilers?

ValueSubtracted OP Mod ,
@ValueSubtracted@startrek.website avatar

That was the idea. Is it having a visible effect?

markuss ,

Loved the episod! Ethan Peck owned it and now I can’t wait to see even more of Carol Kane’s character.

I am curious though, are the writers hinting at a future “Jekyll & Hyde” plot line when it comes to M’Benga and that green battle juice that he apparently keeps with himself at all times?

FormerGameDev ,

My thought is that his plotline this season might include some resolution of Klingon War era trauma, of which we’ve been told just a little bit in this episode, and which brings him to carry the super soldier serum on him.

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