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

adamlauver ,

I loved this episode. Some really great relationship progress… Chapel/Spock, Uhura/Kirk, Kirk/Kirk, Kirk/La’an, Pelia/Una, even a taste of Kirk/Spock at the end. Pike exhibiting remarkable and badass trust in his bridge crew. And Hemmer lingering over it all in such a bittersweet way. I was so here for all of it. And I actually thought the reveal about the aliens in the deuterium burning out Uhura and Ramon’s “receivers” was a super cool sci-fi concept. Might be my favorite episode of the season so far to be honest!

linux2647 ,

“Eyes in the dark, one moon circling”

cybervseas ,

Oh man that episode was about hydrogen (deuterium) too. They couldn’t even change the element for this one.

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.

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.

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.

estebanknobl ,
@estebanknobl@startrek.website avatar

It was not as fun as last week’s episode, but I liked it. Great to see Bruce Horak. I felt it strange not seeing Farragut’s captain somewhere along the episode.

theothersparrow ,
@theothersparrow@lemmy.one avatar

That was the only part of the episode I found weird.

Like congrats a captain that doesn’t just leave their ship for every little thing… but not even a lil’ interaction with them? Not even a “howdy?”

zpm ,
@zpm@lemmy.world avatar

Great episode with serious and feel good moments.

Watching Kirk and Spock meet was fun.

angstrom ,

A little bit of a dip from last week but otherwise an enjoyable episode even if it learned a bit too much on the fan service.

Although kudos to the writers for cleverly weaving around existing continuity and throwing in the Gorn misdirection.

forgotmylastusername ,

Pike once again demonstrates his faith in the crew without second guessing Uhuras decisions. What a boss.

const_void ,
@const_void@lemmy.world avatar

A little sleepy w/ exposition over showing BUT had some nice moments.

Mandolingual ,

I enjoyed the ep but I feel like lots of eps this season have followed the pattern of something messing with their heads, character development, revealing an ineffable alien thing. Which is fine from time to time, and those were good eps, but it would be nice to have more alien sociology type stuff with more humanoid species

electrorocket ,

Like last week? And the second episode?

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.

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.

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.

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.

XiberKernel ,

This was the weakest episode of the season so far, and I still loved it. I couldn’t get over the fact Uhura wasn’t confined to sickbay or quarters by mid episode, but the rest of it showcases why SNW is quickly becoming my favorite Trek series.

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