Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x06 "Lost In Translation"

LoglineUhura seems to be the only one who can hear a strange sound. When the noise triggers terrifying hallucinations, she enlists an unlikely assistant to help her track down the source.

Written by Onitra Johnson & David Reed

Directed by Dan Liu

Acid ,
@Acid@startrek.website avatar

Overall a solid episode, a little different but ultimate felt very core Star Trek TOS with strange alien life and coming to a resolution.

Paul Wesley continues to impress me in the role of James T Kirk but his character did not need to be in this episode, they need to be careful with how they use him going forward.

triktrek ,

SNW is such a good show with strong cast and characters and storylines. They totally can stand on their own without trying to bring back legacy characters or storylines. I am not sure why the producers seem to be hell bent on trying to weave these characters back in.

Acid ,
@Acid@startrek.website avatar

Agreed, I didn’t mind Kirk being in A Quality of Mercy or Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. However, him being in this episode just felt he was in it for the sake of it.

UESPA_Sputnik ,
@UESPA_Sputnik@lemmy.world avatar

An okay episode.

Finally Una got to do something instead of being completely on the sidelines. The whole ensemble got something to do, except Ortegas who slowly turns into SNW’s Travis Mayweather: that one cast member that is just there physically but doesn’t get anything to do.

My personal highlight was the scene were Spock and Chapel play chess, and he passive-aggressively pushes her to play faster. Very Vulcan.

What irked me: everyone and their mother immediately started calling the First Officer of another Starfleet ship by his first name. That was weird.

Another weird thing was Pike’s promotion to Fleet Captain. We’ve never seen this in Star Trek, particularly not when it’s just two ships on a mission. So I checked the transcript of The Menagerie were Kirk speaks about the one time he met Captain Pike. And there it is:

MENDEZ: You ever met Chris Pike?
KIRK: When he was promoted to Fleet Captain.

SNW’s producers were sneaky with that one. I’m both annoyed and impressed.

theinspectorst ,
@theinspectorst@kbin.social avatar

My personal highlight was the scene were Spock and Chapel play chess, and he passive-aggressively pushes her to play faster. Very Vulcan.

My favourite scene too. I am glad they only got one scene together this episode to avoid it veering too hard into the soapy relationshipy aspects after last week. But damn those are two well-written, well-acted characters with insane chemistry - they gave them one scene together, playing chess no less, and it stole the whole episode.

Hogger85b ,

From the "previously on SNW" showing pretty much Soapy relationship drama of half the crew I had worries for the episode but was not realised

angstrom ,

The whole ensemble got something to do, except Ortegas who slowly turns into SNW’s Travis Mayweather: that one cast member that is just there physically but doesn’t get anything to do.

I get the feeling the writers don’t really know what to do with Ortegas beyond that she “flies the ship”.

Hogger85b ,

"I fly the ship"

triktrek ,

She also delivers the many one-line commentaries on dire situations. It’s funny at first, but it does get old pretty quickly.

r2vq ,
@r2vq@lemmy.ca avatar

So I checked the transcript of The Menagerie were Kirk speaks about the one time he met Captain Pike.

Well caught!

PIKE: Lieutenant Kirk.

KIRK: That’s right! It’s an honour to meet you, sir. Congratulations on your promotion to Fleet Captain.

I was so focused on Pike’s face since he has met Kirk before. But this is the first time Kirk has met Pike and this is the first thing he says to him. So of course that stands out in his memory in The Menagerie.

deweydecibel ,

I’m with the others that say it’s a really good episode, until you start picking apart some of the decisions. Pike taking the word of a person who has been suffering hallucinations, with no evidence, then preceding to destroy a massive infrastructure project with no real hesitation…it didn’t feel earned. I know he trust her, and Kirk, but damn that was an extreme leap of faith.

Benfell ,
@Benfell@hcommons.social avatar

@deweydecibel @ValueSubtracted

That's frankly what caught my attention, even as I was watching the episode. The decision turns out to have been right, but on thin-to-nonexistent justification.

Schal330 ,

I think what justifies it is the second case that they encounter. The other guy provides them with scientific evidence that Uhura was experiencing something that wasn’t unique to just her.

It was definitely a leap of faith for Pike, but his decision was bolstered by someone (Kirk) that he knows can make the right decisions too.

Benfell ,
@Benfell@hcommons.social avatar

@Schal330

This might be a case where they compressed too much for coherence.

Yeah, there was the other guy. But in my mind, not enough had apparently been done to confirm a superficial and partial similarity of symptoms.

To give an idea of the dissonance, I'm remembering somebody (I think it wasn't Miles O'Brien who got the line) encountering the Cardassian systems on Deep Space 9 and complaining that they weren't triple-redundant.

In academia, we call it parsimony in a way that doesn't quite seem to match a dictionary definition that I just dredged up on line: It's when an explanation seems straightforward and satisfactory. For me, that was missing.

I think a challenge for script writing here is keeping the story moving without dragging this too far into soap opera territory. How much do we really want get into the weeds here?

Maybe the writers thought this was too deep in the weeds. Maybe they just ran out of episode time. Maybe we agree they didn't get the balance right here.

AnnaLogg ,

i was just thrown by the fact that nobody considered the possibility that it was a plot by Romulans or Gorn to get the Federation to self-sabotage. they stated they were at the edge of known space, so i thought a much more cautious attitude was required

Hypersapien ,

They could have fixed that by analyzing the signals in her brain in such a way that they could actually show to Pike.

Borgzilla ,
@Borgzilla@lemmy.ca avatar

It was a good episode, but there are a few things I didn’t like:

  • Blowing up a space refinery on a whim.
  • Too much romance/interpersonal stuff, still.
  • Pike needs to grow a spine and be more assertive.

I give it a 6/10; not bad, not great. I’m looking forward to the new episode.

reddig33 ,

Ramon froze pretty quickly out there in space. Wasn’t it only a couple of weeks ago this show was trying to convince us people could survive in space without a suit for two whole minutes?

zpm ,
@zpm@lemmy.world avatar

He was extra warm too before getting to empty space. Larger differential in temperature.

kargarocP4 ,

Yeah star trek right now really can’t seem to decide whether “space is cold” or not.

Of course, that’s because the truth has just alittle bit of nuance to it, and nuance is hard for writers.
Space can be cold, depending on where you are, but its also barely even there. No atmosphere means no convection, and that means you’re gonna be losing heat much too slowly for it to be your number one problem if you’ve just been spaced without a suit.

r2vq ,
@r2vq@lemmy.ca avatar

Maybe because they’re in the stellar nursery. The deuterium was like having an atmosphere.

CellJeffe ,

Convective heat transfer in a cold dense gaseous nebula would be a lot faster than radiative heat transfer in empty space.

ikesau ,

Zombie Hemmer was freaky! Nicely done, wardrobe/makeup.

This clearly took a lot from TNG’s Night Terrors right? A bit of Firefly’s Bushwhacked in there too.

I liked it overall, but my favourite Star Trek episodes are when the crew gets to use their extreme competency to overcome a difficult challenge. This episode, the crew was… not so competent.

  • Una’s team can’t identify that there’s been sabotage even though it’s just like, phaser blasts from a half-deranged man
  • The dude easily escapes from sick bay and blows up a nacelle (had the stun setting not been invented yet? What about locked doors?)
  • There’s no way the medical team could keep Uhura around and try to do some tests when she’s having an episode, they can only put on the brain scan screensaver
  • They can’t shut down the dang refinery! The lever’s stuck and they’re out of WD-40!
  • Pike blows up the quadrillion dollar infrastructure project immediately, not even just targeted laser blasts to the parts that are doing the murder. The whole thing has to blow up.

I guess this is just trek being trek and I shouldn’t take it so seriously. Emotionally, the crew was at the top of their game: intuitive, perceptive, empathetic, trusting. good stuff.

But yeah, I feel like I would have enjoyed this more had the problem been made more difficult instead of the crew less capable.

marian ,

They can’t shut down the dang refinery! The lever’s stuck and they’re out of WD-40!

I actually had the least problem with that. It’s entirely plausible that huge machines can’t just turned off in an instant. Even real life nuclear reactors need something like +12 hours even for an emergency shutdown. A city-sized space-refinery probably has so much momentum in it’s spinning parts that it is faster to just shoot that thing.

TeaHands ,
@TeaHands@lemmy.world avatar

Enjoyable episode, down a bit from the last few but at least we’re staying well ahead of ep1 in terms of quality. I am getting a bit of Kirk fatigue though, they have him technically meeting people for the first time in this episode but it feels like there’s no impact because we’ve seen them together in alternate timelines already.

Also, did I miss something or did they gather no proof whatsoever of the nebula aliens? I’m fine with Pike taking Uhura’s word for it in the climax but it just felt like there was a bit missing in between “taking the hallucinating person’s word for it” and “we now all accept that this was definitely happening and are writing scientific papers on it”.

Anyway now for my truly controversial opinion: I don’t like Pelia. The character is a great idea, but the execution is terrible.

I was excited at first, Carol Kane is great, but she just doesn’t work here imo. She’s hard to understand, every line seems to be delivered exactly the same, I don’t know she just seems like a joke character but without many jokes. It’s a little uncomfortable to watch.

Fully accept I am the only one who thinks this, though!

Meowrilena ,
@Meowrilena@mstdn.fr avatar

@TeaHands @ValueSubtracted you're not the only one, the way Pelia delivers her lines irks me quite a bit.
Plus, I was shocked at Pike giving Uhura so much liberty with something that he said was so important for the federation, especially since she didn't have any proof. 🤷‍♀️

TeaHands ,
@TeaHands@lemmy.world avatar

I was 100% braced for a deluge of downvotes so thank you for standing with me on this one 😅

Awa ,
@Awa@lemmy.world avatar

I agree with you on multiple accounts. Seems like the writing was lacking. In addition to not securing the hallucinating guy, they also made no formal announcement to security or to warn others about his dangerous presence. You would think with such a huge crew complement that there would be more people walking the halls in the scenes when they were trying to apprehend him. Or at least folks trying to figure out why it is dark, etc.

Also agree with the lack of direction on Carol Kane’s character. In fact, the way they included Hemmer as a hallucination, in the pre-recorded video, as well as in commentary by Una and Pelia, it almost seemed as if they were apologizing to the audience for getting rid of the Hemmer character. I am unsure of the reasoning behind it, but I thought he was a great character and wish they hadn’t killed him off.

So far this is the first episode that kind of disappointed me in the new series. It almost felt like it was filler to create the establishment of relationships between Kirk and the rest of the Enterprise crew.

lonlazarus ,

I don’t know if it was intentional as to be a call back to TOS, but I loved the absolutely senseless way nobody secures potentially dangerous actors that are in sick bay.

Corgana ,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

This /r/Daystrom thread from last year is kinda funny, the OP correctly predicts how Pike and Kirk meet, but then he and most of the commenters dismiss it as “unlikely”.

This leads us to three possibilities

  1. Pike was promoted to Fleet Captain and Kirk took over Command from him as a result, which is where they met. Traditionally, especially in many of the novels, thats when the met before.
  2. Kirk met him on two distinct occasions, firstly when Pike became Fleet Captain and secondly, when he took over Command (its possible that the order was reversed).
  3. Kirk met him on at least two notable occasions, which he mentions.

With James T being confirmed for Season 2 and Sam being on the ship and friendly with Pike, enough to call him “Chris”, no 3 seems to be the most likely answer

It’s a fun thread to scroll through now that we know this episode.

ThrowawayInTheYear23 ,

The Kirk bros. 😅

theothersparrow ,
@theothersparrow@lemmy.one avatar

A Short Trek with them bickering, please.

teft ,

Didn’t realize I wanted that until you said it. Maybe have them on a shuttle trip back to earth for a holiday. The two of them in a shuttle for a week would be hilarious. Imagine “Shuttlepod One” with those two.

eva_sieve , (edited )

I was gearing up for a Gorn episode and they faked us all out!

I liked it thy gave most of the cast (sorry Ortegas) screentime and moved a lot of side plots a small amount.

Moderately bummed they retroactively made Thor (George Kirk) seem like a less good father, though.

RootBeerGuy ,
@RootBeerGuy@ttrpg.network avatar

I was gearing up for a Gorn episode and they faked us all out!

Yeah, totally. I mean building a gas station right next to Gorn space and all you got there is 2 starships, what could go wrong. Turns out its not Gorn.

goGetF1 ,

I didn’t get the impression George was a bad father. Sam certainly struggles with their relationship, but no father is perfect.

This is also the most information we’ve ever gotten on George as a father, so there’s nothing retroactive about it.

electrorocket ,

You don’t activate the bussard collectors. They are always on. And most nebulas are the birthplace of stars, stop being so amazed. Literally unwatchable.

ValueSubtracted OP Mod ,
@ValueSubtracted@startrek.website avatar

The Bussards are an emergency backup system for use when fuel replenishment via tanker is not possible, and are not normally active.

khaosworks , (edited )
@khaosworks@startrek.website avatar

From the TNG Technical Manual (for the Galaxy class, but one can safely assume operations haven’t changed that much):

In the event a deuterium tanker cannot reach a Galaxy class starship, the capability exists to pull low-grade matter from the interstellar medium through a series of specialized high-energy magnetic coils known collectively as a Bussard ramscoop. Named for the twentieth-century physicist and mathematician Robert W. Bussard, the ramscoop emanates directional ionizing radiation and a shaped magnetic field to attract and compress the tenuous gas found within the Milky Way galaxy. From this gas, which possesses an average density of one atom per cubic centimeter, may be distilled small amounts of deuterium for contingency replenishment of the matter supply. At high relativistic speeds, this gas accumulation can be appreciable, though the technique is not recommended for long periods for time-dilation reasons (See: 6.2). At warp velocities, however, extended emergency supplies can be gathered.

[my emphasis]

In those three places there are the qualifiers “in the event…”, “contingency” and “emergency”, which indicate that the Bussard collectors are only activated when needed and are not always on.

The reason is simple: the amount of deuterium that can be gathered is usually in negligible amounts unless you’re in proximity to a dense source of the element, like in a nebula. So it’s just not energy efficient to keep the collectors on all the time.

goGetF1 ,

Half of all TNG episodes started with them being amazed looking at a relatively common phenomena. Those old scientists were just passionate about their job.

Buziel_411 , (edited )

I liked this episode! Although one thing that irked me was “deuterium poisoning.” Deuterium is just a hydrogen isotope; is breathing it actually poisonous? It felt like the writers didn’t realize it wasn’t a fake substance like duranium.

Also I suspected the hallucinations were coming from aliens in the nebulae because the deuterium collection was harming them pretty early on. Definitely feels like a classic Trek story though!

Also, seeing Hemmer again resurfaced my disappointment that they killed him off! He was one of my favorite characters in the first season. When they showed the flashback of his death in the episode intro, I was hoping they were going to revive him somehow in this episode, haha. I’m still holding out hope that he didn’t actually die but survived the fall and has been surviving on the ice planet (since he is Aenar after all). Unfortunately, I guess they already used the “left behind a crew member assumed KIA” with Zac Nguyen so I doubt this will happen.

Hogger85b ,

Deuterium is toxic (in high concentrations) to multicell animals as it changes the angle of.the hydrogen bonds which is key to cellular replication and enzyme prodcution. However you would have to drink all d2o instead of h2o for about a week to begin to notice (need 25-50% of body water). Blocking cellular replication is similar to what chemotherapy does so would.be like bad chemo...eventually the dose is so large it is not useful Cancer drug.

There is also mentions of dizziness and impact on vestibular system (senses) but not the wiki article does not expand on this and the linked article just mentions nystagmus (involuntary eye movements)
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1974Natur.247..404M/abstract

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water

Interestingly there is also a theory it may affect circadian cycles in some insects https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC433660/ (which could impact sleep pattern in humans)

All in all it looks like the writers may have looked into it afterall.

khaosworks ,
@khaosworks@startrek.website avatar

Deuterium toxicity does exist, but you’d have to ingest a hell of a lot of it, not trace amounts via breathing. The symptoms mimic radiation poisoning, although since deuterium isn’t radioactive, it isn’t actually that.

erbazzone ,

deuterium poisoning

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water#Effect_on_biolo…

shnizmuffin ,
@shnizmuffin@lemmy.inbutts.lol avatar

As may occur in chemotherapy, deuterium-poisoned mammals die of a failure of bone marrow (producing bleeding and infections) and of intestinal-barrier functions (producing diarrhea and loss of fluids).

Hogger85b ,

Yeah when you have "refinarey", mysterious signal, it was well hinted, then acts of sabotage it did seem that way and when the other victim was focussed on jestisoning the gas from the nacel seemed even more certain

eva_sieve ,

I mean, I think it’s just reality-adjacent technobabble and you’ve got to accept it as plausible in universe. Tritium is a real thing used in nuclear fission but it’s not so rare that you should don robotic arms and go on a crime spree to get some. On a more Star Trek adjacent topic, protostars are a real thing but (at least as far as we know) you can’t shove them in a box to travel ludicrous speed.

psistarpsiii ,
@psistarpsiii@tacobelllabs.net avatar

@ValueSubtracted @Buziel_411 D is an isotope of H, yes, but H is so light and D has twice its mass. It’s a kinetic isotope effect issue IIRC - throws off our enzymes.

notverylearnedhand ,

Fantastic episode. Great to see Bruce Horak back.

I was a little thrown by the interactions between Sam and Kirk, and Una and Pelia. Their early scenes kind of felt pissy in a way you don’t usually see in star trek.

StillPaisleyCat , (edited )
@StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website avatar

Nice to see Bruce Horak back, but very much want more. More Hemmer, more Aenar, even more Bruce Horak as a completely different alien or character.

I like the episode a lot, and it hit so very many wonderful notes and gave us so many coup d’oeil moments….but…it’s also getting me to the point where wanting just to settle into something just focused on the entire main cast together. That won’t be next week’s crossover with Lower Decks or the musical episode. And we’re promised a ‘Moretegas’ episode too. Would be sad if the finale is the only episode that features the whole cast coalescing as a team.

We got more from Una in this one, but still not enough. They had her in an oppositional situation with Pelia, somewhat as she was with Hemmer in season one. Even though I liked the resolution, and it’s great to see this kind of friction between two female officers with very different temperaments, somehow it’s not quite hitting the mark in making us see why Una is such a great officer. I feel like other than in the focus episodes for her each season, the writers just don’t know who she is as well as Chabon did when he wrote Q&A.

I’m also having very mixed feelings about how Kirk is overshadowing main characters in the episodes in which he appears. This Kirk is growing on me, but do we really need so much Kirk so early in the multi season run of this show? Especially when it’s getting Paramount+ ratings enough to make the case for many seasons to come.

All to say, as much as I really am sold on the ensemble, with so few episodes, I’m feeling that adding in so much Kirk is taking away from the opportunities to have other ensemble characters be featured teaming up with each other. I’m still not feeling that hankering for Pike’s Enterprise, that I’ve had since I first saw the reconstruction of The Cage, is quite getting satisfied.

theothersparrow ,
@theothersparrow@lemmy.one avatar

Their early scenes kind of felt pissy in a way you don’t usually see in star trek.

I liked them, personally. I often think about what conflict would look like in a post-scarcity people… and sibling resentment, minor grudges (re: Una) feel like the sort of thing that stand the test of time.

StillPaisleyCat ,
@StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website avatar

We saw some of that pissy-ness in season one of Discovery, and the frictions between McCoy and others in TOS were far more extreme.

We shouldn’t expect 23rd Century crews to behave like mid 24th century crews in TNG. Human society has had another century of evolution and peace by then.

reddig33 ,

Can anyone explain why a space station that seems to break down when you sneeze at it wrong, or smash one of its power conduits, requires photon torpedoes to shut it down?

electrorocket ,

First Uhura said destroy it, then she said release the deuterium, then she gave the order to fire photon torpedoes like that’s even a thing she has the authority do. Make up your minds, writers.

Hogger85b ,

Hydrogen burning would be bad too right, (the frieball seems large, how much oxygen was on the station?).but burning the D in the explosion is bad too right

cybervseas , (edited )

When I watched it, it looked like Uhura was so eager to fix the situation that she yelled to fire the torpedos, but I noticed right after she said if that Pike gave a nod to the crewman to approve the order. Uhura was just a little excited.

TeaHands ,
@TeaHands@lemmy.world avatar

One of my favourite things about the Pike-light episodes we’ve been getting is Mount’s ability to still do all the acting he needs to do just with these little background reactions. Last week was a great example, this scene was another one. Such a charismatic actor.

frankPodmore ,
@frankPodmore@slrpnk.net avatar

I thought she said to release the deuterium from the nacelles (of the Enterprise), but to destroy the mining station (as @cybervseas points out, Pike confirmed the latter order).

theothersparrow ,
@theothersparrow@lemmy.one avatar

They sneezed at it wrong… and the shutdown measures malfunctioned.

And they couldn’t very well just let the deuterium-creatures continue being butchered while they sorted it out.

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