maddy ,

So this is how M’Benga isn’t the CMO by the time of Kirk? This storyline still has many more seasons to go, it seems.

williams_482 ,
@williams_482@startrek.website avatar

M’Benga has compiled a hell of a list of justifications for getting demoted already, and (obviously) none of them have actually got him in trouble just yet. Secretly keeping his daughter in the transporter buffer, carrying super soldier serum about his person at all times, killing a Klingon ambassador… suffice to say he’s a bit of a wildcard.

tuxman20 ,
@tuxman20@mastodon.social avatar

@williams_482 @maddy Demoted?! More like Court Martialed and sent to a mining colony for life :P

angstrom ,

Yeah. There is definitely several stories that could play out here, for both M’Benga and Chapel.

Continuity wise McCoy didn’t join the Enterprise until after the first couple of episodes of TOS s1, Mark Piper was the CMO for those so there is definitely a thread they could pick on prior to Kirk taking command of the Enterprise.

For Chapel we know she gets engaged to Roger Korby at some point. Will be interesting to see how they move the character to line up with ‘What Are Little Girls Made Of?’

koreth , (edited )

Not just by the time of Kirk. He’s already gone by the time of “The Cage.”

EDIT: No, I got my timeline screwed up. “The Cage” predates SNW. Oops.

erbazzone ,

After one of the funniest episode in trek history we got one of the darkest.

famousringo ,

The variety is one of best things about SNW. The whole episode was a thriller. You know somebody’s going to get stabbed, just a question of who, when, and how badly.

UESPA_Sputnik ,
@UESPA_Sputnik@lemmy.world avatar

What a tonal shift from the last episode.

I think this was on par with DS9’s Dominion War episodes, showing how the Federation ideals clash with the real world. It will certainly be controversial for being so “un-Trek”. There’s no happy ending, there’s just the sinking feeling that a war never really ends in the heads of those that were affected by it.

The acting was stellar all around, particularly M’Benga and Chapel. [Edit: and Ortegas! Finally she got some material to work with that weren’t funny one-liners, and she made the most of it.] And that final scene with M’Benga and Pike just demands a continuation in the future.

It was certainly an impressive, thought-provoking episode but if you’d ask me to rate this episode on a scale of 1 to 10 I’d have no idea where to put it. I’m still sitting here trying to wrap my head around what I just saw. I guess that’s war for you. It doesn’t make sense.

InverseParallax , (edited )

Yeah, but the depth was great, I really felt m’benga was a badly developed character till now, and this fleshed him out in ways that made him now one of my fsvorites, before he made no sense.

Also loved bunny’s work as the klingon, that is ALWAYS a hard role, but he managed to nail him as

Spoiler1. A klingon, 2. A klingon defector 3. A klingon defector turned pacifist diplomat for the federation 4. A klingon defector, coward liar war criminal turned pacifist diplomat for the federation. He also had to seem like he could be betraying starfleet the whole time, AND that he genuinely believed and wanted redemption.

People will undersell how hard that is to pull off, m’benga’s actor had 1.5 seasons to lay the foundation for aspects of his character (though honestly it was mostly done here) while bunny had this episode, to cram in all of that.

Help! How do you do spoilers!!? K, figured it out.

UESPA_Sputnik ,
@UESPA_Sputnik@lemmy.world avatar

Agreed on the Klingon ambassador! The acting felt weird at first but his demeanor made sense at the end.

And I feel similarly as you about M’Benga. I didn’t care much about him until now, he was simply the doctor that speaks strangely. But now I really want to find out what’s next for him.

InverseParallax ,

M’benga was so intense for no reason, and the fighting thing was overplayed, his whole demeanor was off.

Now it kind of plays, the doctor who hates himself because he had to kill.

khaosworks ,
@khaosworks@startrek.website avatar

Annotations are up at startrek.website/post/508416

snowyday ,

Erica, the doctor, and Christine, throughout the entire episode: “Don’t believe him. Don’t trust him. Let him die.”

InverseParallax ,

Damn, that one hit harder than expected.

williams_482 ,
@williams_482@startrek.website avatar

Well, the previously inexplicable “inject a bunch of drugs to fight Klingons” scene in the season opener has suddenly paid off.

I have little to say now except that this episode was a seriously heavy hitter. Just… wow. And ouch.

triktrek ,

Even with this “backstory” of this green juice, it really isn’t much of a backstory. It’s just explained as some chemical that makes you stronger – it still feels like a cheap plot device, and that action sequence in the season opener was still unexpectedly long.

reddig33 ,

Think of it as trek adrenaline/speed/meth. In war, governments often try to find drugs they can give soldiers to enhance performance.

inappropriatecontent ,

I spent over a decade addicted to meth, and in my experience, that green slime ain’t meth.

tdriley ,
@tdriley@mas.to avatar

@williams_482 @triktrek Many fans react badly to the P-12 serum as a lazy plot device, but consider: In key battles, it’d make tactical sense for Klingons to draw Fed soldiers into hand to hand combat, because they’re typically experienced blade warriors. It would then be attractive to the Fed to develop something like P-12 as a counter-tactic. Then consider there is a potential sub-plot exploring the ethics of humans revisiting their Eugenics Wars-era mistakes.

tdriley ,
@tdriley@mas.to avatar

@williams_482 @triktrek (It is mentioned elsewhere that human soldiers in the Eugenics Wars were given drugs to make them better fighters, and human history remembers this as a huge mistake/atrocity).

poundsignbuttstuff ,

Do we need the backstory? It’s space PCP for war. Jokes aside, look at how many times in war, we (and I mean a collective we because numerous countries have done this over the last century+) have given soldiers, pilots, etc amphetamines and more in order to improve their ability to fight, stay awake, and win the war.

M’Benga made a future drug that does all this which he prefers people don’t use but keeps it just in case he has to save people or survive battles.

That’s all the explanation I need. Old Trek didn’t give us even that much most of the time - just treknobabble.

michaelgemar ,
@michaelgemar@mstdn.ca avatar

@poundsignbuttstuff @startrek I thought he says explicitly that it contains adrenaline and pain inhibitors. I’m not sure such a real-world cocktail would have the portrayed effects, but it’s clear they’re trying to ground the concoction realistically.

nyxlabs , (edited )

This was one of the best "connective tissue" episodes of Star Trek I've ever seen.
It provides context and ties together the Discovery Era "T'Kuvma War" with the eventual outcome in "The Undiscovered Country", while providing a layered, accurate and evocative image of Klingon Honor and "perceived honor" while staying true to the lore and expanding it in meaningful ways. It also has strong shades of "The Siege of AR-558". It now "makes sense" how the Klingons got from TOS to TNG. Wow!

Dr. M'Benga is fast becoming one of my favorite characters. Robert Wisdom's Dak'Rah was terrific too!

Heghlu’meH QaQ jajvam

Edit: Spelling, Phrasing

themz ,
@themz@lemmy.world avatar

Wow. There’s no contest anymore: SNW is undoubtedly the best new Trek. This season has been fantastic. Somehow they’ve just outdone last week’s crossover. And they just did war ‘better’ than DS9.

Olap ,

Steady now, DS9 has so much more breadth to war than what we just saw. The pacing was too fast for a single episode with such gravitas for me. The final act in particular was rushed. A doctor as the real butcher (!), the ambassador without a real right of reply, and the implications of a cover up from 2 starfleet officers, one of which lied to the captain. The use of a banned serum also clouding the episode too, combined with special forces. A lack of chapel’s report.

I suspect at least 10 minutes on the cutting room floor here. Wish it was there

Don’t get me wrong. One of the best EVER in trek, I was glued from start to finish. But afterwards I wanted a two parter! Bring back some doubles please script writers and producers

themz , (edited )
@themz@lemmy.world avatar

OK. Yes. I don’t mean to say its take on war is better than the entirety of DS9, but as a single episode (with the benefit of modern effects tech) it sure dived straight into the horror of it all! Then landed at a dark place with a conclusion that really isn’t justice.

Olap ,

Can see where the budget went this season for sure

poundsignbuttstuff ,

I look forward to seeing someone write in retrospect a deep dive into a comparison of M’Benga and Bashir in wartime. The two felt the same emotions, dealt with the same decisions, and had to deal with tough choices and the inherent struggle of the Hippocratic oath in wartime yet both of them handled it so incredibly differently.

That is a Daystrom essay I look forward to reading.

triktrek ,

As someone else mentioned in another comment, it’s bonkers that SNW can do a cartoon episode, a war episode and a musical episode back-to-back. I love now experimental SNW is!

ValueSubtracted OP Mod ,
@ValueSubtracted@startrek.website avatar

Elevating a notorious enemy general to the position of ambassador in a handful of years is a total Starfleet move.

famousringo ,

“We turned this war criminal into a crusader for peace. Just imagine what we’ll do to you, punk.”

milkisklim ,

Quark: I want you to try something for me. Take a sip of this.

Garak: What is it?

Quark: A human drink. It’s called root beer.

Garak: I don’t know.

Quark: Come on. Aren’t you just a little bit curious?

Quark: What do you think?

Garak: It’s vile.

Quark: I know. It’s so bubbly and cloying and happy.

Garak: Just like the Federation.

Quark: But you know what’s really frightening? If you drink enough of it, you begin to like it.

Garak: It’s insidious.

Quark: Just like the Federation.

poundsignbuttstuff ,

Such an amazing scene and seeing it written makes me respect those two actors so much more. There isn’t really a lot said on the page but their acting really sold that scene and made it spectacular.

I can’t imagine being the writer on the show who wrote that and then saw it acted by those two. I’d have thought I was the best writer ever but the writer had a great analogy and it was the actors that made it sing (and director, editor, producers, etc.)

scy ,
@scy@chaos.social avatar

As this week’s episode was pretty grim again, I’ve added detailed content warnings to Does The Dog Die at https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/896237?index1=2&index2=8. Warning: Some of these can be a bit spoiler-y, but people who read DTDD usually value detailed CWs higher than not seeing any spoilers whatsoever.

scarecrw ,

Loved the Clint Howard cameo! Pretty amazing to still have actors all the way from TOS appearing!

stuck ,

I hope you relish it as I do!

MikeyMongol ,
@MikeyMongol@lemmynsfw.com avatar

I screamed when he appeared on screen. It scared my dog.

angstrom ,

A bit of whiplash from the switch in tone from the last episode but this was a masterpiece. Strange New Worlds seems to be successfully synthesizing all the Trek shows that have gone before it to create something that is classic Trek, but also something new.

I wonder if the first episode of the season would have worked better if this had been before it in the running order?

ThrowawayInTheYear23 ,

Damn that was a heavy episode, i think i’m ready for the musical now. Wish we could have seen more of the Kelcie Mae.

yaaaaayPancakes ,

Not much to say beyond this episode was amazing. I love how this crew can do it all - lighthearted comedy, to dark, emotional drama. The scars that Ortegas, Chapel, and M’Benga wore in this episode felt real. When Chapel hesitated at knocking the one guy out of the pattern buffer, and M’Benga just cooly smacked the button, it was a clear reminder that war is hell and it breaks people.

RootBeerGuy ,
@RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I liked it, but two things went a bit too far.

The bio-bed acting up was just too silly of an issue to bring up. I mean this is starfleets flagship with the best of the best on board and M’Benga keeps working on this bio-bed, never fully fixing it? Sounds weird.

Second, they are making this whole keeping a person buffered in a transporter thing way too useful. Like the only downside seems to be that if you get a malfunction you may need to “delete” the person. I remember some episode of another series, was it Rikers clone in TNG? Where they were worried about integrity of the pattern, since it was stored so long. Did not seem to be a problem for his daughter though. Don’t like how this is so trivialized, it would solve so many problems if this could be done “professionally”.

a_random_fox ,
@a_random_fox@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

There was the episode with Scotty in TNG (Relics) where there was indeed the problem of the pattern of the person who was in the buffer with him degrading, but that was over decades (2294-2369), while M’Bengas daughter was in the pattern buffer significantly less time. She was also rematerialised from time to time and it was noted that not doing so risked the integrity of the pattern, which contributed to the issue seen in the TNG episode.

michaelgemar ,
@michaelgemar@mstdn.ca avatar

@RootBeerGuy @startrek The transporter is essentially magic. If you think too long about it, you’ll wonder why, for example, everyone doesn’t “store their pattern”, and thus become effectively immortal. Or why a pattern can’t be materialized multiple times, to generate an army of clones.

I love Trek, but it’s much more space opera than hard sci-fi, and often the “sciencey” bits are purely for narrative convenience (see also “holodeck”).

darth_helmet ,

Yep, particularly with the Riker clone, it seems like the safest way to do away missions would be to send down an instance of the crew rather than the actual crew. But then what would they do with all those extra red shirts?

StillPaisleyCat ,
@StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website avatar

David Brin’s book ‘Kiln People’ explores this idea.

The problem is, as we saw with Tom Riker, the duplicates have their own existence and experiences. Should they just be destroyed like Tuvix in order to restore the originals?

darth_helmet ,

Transporters essentially destroy and recreate people anyway, you have to imagine it is already something that most folks in Starfleet have made peace with, somehow.

Tom Riker is proof that we’re just bags of meat, and consciousness is an emergent phenomenon. The only difference is that instances copies have a divergence point in their experiences. The Bobiverse books explore similar ideas.

But it is hard to imagine those instances wouldn’t want to avoid getting merc’d Tuvix-style. The handwavium way you’d probably try to approach it would be some sort of memory reintegration. Not implausible in Star Trek

ValueSubtracted OP Mod ,
@ValueSubtracted@startrek.website avatar

Re: the transporters.

Patterns in the buffer usually degrade over time - The TNG Technical Manual says patterns can last about seven minutes before degradation begins. Obviously, Scotty was able to extend this dramatically, though with only a 50% success rate.

They did touch on this in SNW season one, when M’Benga said he had to rematerialize his daughter periodically. However, the timeframe, while not specified, seemed a helluva lot longer than seven minutes.

khaosworks ,
@khaosworks@startrek.website avatar

The Tech Manual notwithstanding, on screen we’ve definitely seen longer than seven minutes, notably VOY: “Counterpoint” and DIS: “Stormy Weather”. I take it like I do the original Tech Manual’s statement that you can’t fire phasers at warp.

ValueSubtracted OP Mod ,
@ValueSubtracted@startrek.website avatar

You’re certainly right that there’s some wiggle room, though “Counterpoint” has the advantage of having shown the pattern degradation occurring.

StillPaisleyCat ,
@StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website avatar

I love the TNG Technical Manual but anything onscreen has to trump it.

I’m much more fussed about rapid organ fabricators and dermal regenerators being a thing this early.

I think we’re going to have to buy into 23rd century technology being ahead of were we expect from TOS - but not necessarily ahead of some of the wild claims (and therapies) Bones had access to in the movies.

goGetF1 ,

For all we know, 24th century transporters have an advantage over the 23rd century design but at the expense of superior pattern storage.

JWBananas ,
@JWBananas@startrek.website avatar

Or they don’t, but 23rd century medicine isn’t sophisticated enough to detect/understand the damage.

Hogger85b , (edited )

I thought it was played like pattern buffer storage is an m'benga special skill he is better at than his peers

darth_helmet ,

He’s a cleaner, a doctor, and also the best transporter tech in the business, better than folks operating teleporters a hundred years later.

M’Benga Sue

ari ,

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the moderator]

    •
    RootBeerGuy , (edited )
    @RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    You raise some good points but your condescending intro was seriously unnecessary and uncalled for.

    Sure it could be symbolic. It could also be just a bio-bed. If its used as a metaphor it is a terrible one in my opinion, seeing as this is an advanced future with massive technological advancement. Why out of all people on this ship is it M’Benga doing this, never succeeding, but at no time an actual engineer, you know, like someone with 1000+ years experience, is asked to fix it? I get it that its part of his character that he is handy, but still this is medical equipment, its essential, it needs to work 100%. How would this not be escalated to relevant personel? This is not the war times depicted in the flashbacks, they have resource to do this. Also quite some time has passed since the Gorn attack.

    I rather agree with one of the other posters who said its a setup for something to come.

    So, thanks for your comment but seriously work on your attitude if you consider posting more than just this one comment.

    Hogger85b ,

    Excellent post, absolutely right about symobolism

    ValueSubtracted OP Mod ,
    @ValueSubtracted@startrek.website avatar

    Personal attacks are out of line.

    ari ,

    Being 100% honest with you I never intended to attack anyone personally and would greatly appreciate help in highlighting where I’ve done that. I’d normally reread my comment to try to figure out where any misunderstanding could have occurred in situations like this, but the comment’s been removed. I put considerable effort into that comment and don’t want this to happen again in the future.

    eva_sieve ,

    Our literal introduction to Brad Boimler is him trying to repair a broken replicator! Things break and they don’t magically get replaced despite (because of?) Starfleet.

    Kinda agree on the media literacy thing. Subtext and symbolism exist! I don’t even think this episode’s was particularly subtle. Sometimes I wonder what percentage of the fandom believe that Janeway genuinely would get her crew killed just to get some coffee.

    Odo ,

    About the bed: There seems to be an ongoing sub-plot about random systems on the ship glitching out. I’ve seen speculation they’re quietly setting up some kind of AI takeover issue later on. Note the odd shot the episode ends on, with the bed’s info screen flickering again.

    RootBeerGuy ,
    @RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    Sounds feasible but reminds me of the DISCO control plot. I hope that is not returning.

    Hogger85b ,

    My take is the same as the other poster the biobed was metaphor for the doctors state of mind.....but happy to be wrong if it is system glitches and have seen suggestions it links to romulan time sabatours

    triktrek ,

    They should take the idea of “storing people in buffers” all the way to extreme and explore it like Black Mirror does. What does this mean if everyone had the opportunity to store people in buffers? Can everyone sign up for this service and instantly beam you into a buffer whenever you have an incurable diseases at the time? Is there a service to auto-beam you into the buffer if the ship is about to crash-land? Can richer people pay to have poorer people’s buffer be deleted when you run out of buffer space? What happens if there is a glitch and people who are in the buffer experience 20 years in real-time?

    I think there’s so much potential for more exploration here. It would be cool to have Charlie Booker on a Star Trek episode, as he kinda did a fun/excellent/dark Star Trek Black Mirror episode too.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • [email protected]
  • All magazines
    •