Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x09 "Subspace Rhapsody"

CeruleanRuin , 10 months ago

That was so stupid. I love this show.

MadMadBunny , 10 months ago

I hope they make one where they poof into bunnies!!! Maybe a Lower Decks episode?

GaiusGornicusCaesar , 10 months ago

Episode was good. Klingon part was funny. Liked how the played the TOS theme after the “grand finale” was finished.

Continuumguy , 10 months ago

I kind of thought playing the TOS theme was like meant to be the music played after the final curtain as the actors take their bows and people start leaving the theater.

GaiusGornicusCaesar , 10 months ago

Yeah, make sense. Still like it, love the theme and love whenever it is played.

erbazzone , 11 months ago

Ok, a post from someone that really hate musicals and was worried about this episode. So sorry if I will over criticize the episode…

I admit the episode was so fun at the beginning and songs were nice, loved La’an and Una parts they were really good. I was thinking the episode was a banger. I loved so much the opera opening too.

Unlikely it started to lose my attention around on Chapel’s song (also because the autotune was so evident in her and I found the Chapel Spock relationship the worst part of the series) and the second part was a little hard for me to follow, the music too was less interesting and even if Uhura has a great voice her solo song was too long and def not my cup of tea, I didn’t even understand what was trying to say. It could have worked for me with less songs.

It was interesting I have fun for more than I thought and I laughed so much with Klingons, it was often close to clinginess but it was ok at the end.

plasmoidal , 10 months ago

Loved it.

Some amusing details:

• For Pike’s singing voice, he adopts a kind of Meatloaf/Russell-Crowe-in-Les-Miz style that is exactly the right mixture of masculine and adorable.
• The build up to the Klingon Boy Band: We know that Klingons love opera, heightened emotions, spontaneous group singing, and choreography (if you’re willing to consider martial arts a form of choreography). La’an even explicitly mentions singing old sea shanties which would seem to be an obvious way to translate the Klingons into musical form. So naturally, I was shocked that the Klingons would not immediately assimilate into their new musical reality. I even told my husband, “I can’t believe the Klingons would want this to stop!” And when it hit, everything made perfect sense.

jaelisp , 10 months ago

Another amazing episode and a certainly fresh idea for the Klingons with their K-pop, or Kling-pop?

I think they towed a good line on whimsy, emotion and gimmicks and kept it well grounded as character exploration. Let’s force everyone to process their season’s emotional growth in song!

Also I have to say I love how much focus SNW gives to lower ranking officers. Classic trek always ended up focusing on a few senior officers but this is a proper ensemble number.

Only thing I want more now is this with Elle Cordova doing her Star Trek technoblabble songs in it.

barsoap , 10 months ago

I think that was a tribute.

MadMadBunny , 10 months ago

OMG LOL

triktrek , 10 months ago

This is one of the Elle Cordova Technobabble songs being referred to for the uninitiated. It’s pretty funny.

AuroraBorealis , 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

What the heck, this episode must have taken so much effort like 20+ minutes of singing + music (and the writing of the songs as well), and in a good half of those requires choreographed dancing as well, the a capella version of the intro, and a few orchestra versions in the credits

I was grinning almost the entire time for this episode, it was just…fun! And it moved the plot along too! (Although you kinda need to with so few episodes in a season)

GuyFleegman , 10 months ago

What a lovely episode.

I saw a fair amount of skepticism across the Fediverse about how musical episodes are always bad and annoying, to which someone would always respond “well, Buffy nailed it.” Apparently the SNW writers feel the same way, because “Subspace Rhapsody” isn’t just a homage to “Once More With Feeling,” it’s a love letter. They may have swapped the demon for a subspace wedgie, but they kept the idea of using music to force the characters to confront their feelings about each other, and they even threw in a bunny callback.

10/10. I hope SNW maintains the tradition of a theatrically silly episode near the end of each season as long as it runs!

Disgustoid , 10 months ago

I was fully expecting Pike to say something along the lines of “you mean we have to sing once more, with feeling?” as a not-so-subtle nod to Buffy.

astronaut_sloth , 10 months ago

I love Star Trek, and I love musicals. These are two of my favorite things, and I never thought they should mix. When this was announced, I was very skeptical. I have to say, that they pulled it off, and it was AMAZING! The plot was a bit meh and definitely made to shoehorn in the musical, but the singing really did it for me. “How Would That Feel” (La’an’s solo) and “Keep Us Connected” (Uhura’s solo) were my favorite songs, and I have listened to them so much today. “How Would That Feel” definitely cemented La’an’s place as my favorite character.

batmaniam , 10 months ago

I hated it, because I hate musicals, but I love that it happened. I loved watching it and hated every godamn second.

Please… no more… but I’m glad this happened and I’m glad people that like musicals seemed to more or less have enjoyed it.

Just… I’m begging… no more.

edit: it was incredibly charming. I still hate it. It’s cannon and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I hate it. There is no way I am the only person like this.

CarnivorousCouch , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

You’re not alone. I hate musicals. Love that they can have fun like this in Trek, but please never again please because I’ll have to watch that one too.

Edit: Chapel’s number was pretty cool though.

const_void , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

There were some excellent bits, but I wish it didn’t take up one of the ten-episode slots. They did loop in Kirk’s kid, so that was an excellent plot beat, as was the TOS soundtrack. I didn’t have a problem with the concept (“Wha if…”); Spock / Chapel / Pike / M’Benga had great tunes and didn’t mind Ortegas and Klingons doing Tope 40 boy-band is 20 yrs of meme material. The finale was uneven.

Outside of the individual elements and the “Strange New World” concept … it was rough, especially knowing how good the show can be, and it took one of the spots for THAT goodness. Wish we had 15 episode seasons.

batmaniam , 10 months ago

I hear you on the “ten episode” bit. I HATE that that became standard. It’s some real garbage and has hurt a lot of different shows. The Last of Us was generally amazing, but suffered from rushing a bit. Without spoilers, there’s an episode where they expand on a minor gay character from the game, and the main characters aren’t in it much. The episode is amazing, and also got a ton of hate because the internet is awful, but one very valid critique is that in spending the entire episode in that wonderful little vignette, you had to rush beats of other episodes. That could have been fixed by simply having more episodes in the season.

Point is, somewhere shrinkflation hit our TV shows and I hate it lol.

astronaut_sloth , 10 months ago

Right there with you on 10 episode seasons. I wish we could go back to 22 episode seasons.

ryan , 10 months ago

I agree. As a fellow musical lover (I'm posting from the intermission of a touring Broadway show) the writers clearly understand what the music in musicals is meant to represent. La'an's and Uhura's solo numbers definitely gave some emotional insight into both characters that I feel benefited the show beyond just being decent musical numbers.

The autotune was painful in a few moments for certain actors but hey, they're not professional singers, and I would have loved a bigger dance number, but I know that's pushing it.

Prouvaire , 10 months ago

Another musical theatre Star Trek fan who finally caught up with the episode. Obviously I loved it. The writers took their cue from "Once More With Feelings" and used the "very special episode" conceit to progress seasonal character arcs (as they did with "Those Old Scientists"). You could tell was the intent even from the "previously on" recap with a bunch of relationship tensions ready to be revealed through song. (The bunnies reference was a nice nod to the Buffy episode.)

I knew Celia Rose Gooding could sing (although, sadly, she was off when I saw Jagged Little Pill on Broadway), so the actor whose vocal chops surprised me most was Christina Chong. I see from her wikipedia entry that she was actually in the Elton John musical Aida in Berlin, so that makes sense now.

Maybe my favourite minor running gag was how the characters always heard and acknowledged the backing music - in dialogue or with just a glance. I could go on a pretentious detour on mimetic vs diegetic music, but won't.

But I wasn't blind to some of the episode's flaws either. The biggest to me was that the songs lacked the craft and polish of really good musical theatre songs, with (for instance) many imperfect rhymes and awkward prosody (putting the stress on the wrong syl-LA-ble of a word). Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, a show that I loved, suffered from the same issue.

A minor complaint is that I didn't think we need the rules of musical theatre to be so explicitly lampshaded by the characters, although La'an treating it as security (and personal, emotional) risk was cute - and in character.

StillPaisleyCat , 10 months ago

Christina Chong reportedly switched to auditioning for television roles after an injury sidelined her musical theatre career for a time. It doesn’t sound as though she ever expected the kind of role she has with La’an.

She’s currently releasing a series of music videos for an album. The next one will come out at 4:00 pm EDT today August 7th. You can check out her other offerings on her YouTube channel. I’ve posted her release of two weeks ago to the Quark’s community here on this instance as it seems the better place to follow her singing career outside of the franchise.

Shdwdrgn , 10 months ago

Oh god, “Once More With Feeling” was the first musical TV episode that stuck with me. So much passion in that episode and it brought to a head so many issues the characters had been dealing with up to that point. It still stands out as my favorite episode of the entire series.

Guess I’m going to have to rewatch this episode, I missed the bunny reference!

Prouvaire , 10 months ago

Or maybe midgets.

Tired8281 , 10 months ago

We all must have done some pretty amazing stuff in our past lives, to deserve this season we are getting.

echo , 10 months ago

Kirk and Uhura are real ones for never telling McCoy that Spock had a phase of being proud to be human until he got dumped by Nurse Chapel. He never would have let him live it down.

PoweredByGeena , 10 months ago

Upfront: I love musicals. I have to say this episode is just so creative and original. I think it is one of my all time favorites across all the series. Strange New Worlds has done such a good job bringing back the light-heartedness in a franchise that had become so overly dark and serious - and this is the pinnacle of that effort. Season 2 has just been outstanding.

Jacko , 10 months ago

Same. Told my wife it was my fav ep ever.

Electricorchestra , 10 months ago

Fantastic episode! Loved it from cover to cover. I like how we have Spock reverting back to being classic Spock in a musical episode. Arguably it makes this episode one of the most important episodes to canon. Also did Kirk know about Marcus beforehand? I swear he learned about him in Wrath of Kahn but I haven’t seen that film in forever.

khaosworks , 10 months ago

Yes.

Kirk was aware of David’s existence prior, but David wasn’t aware that Kirk was his father. He is surprised when David identifies himself as Dr Marcus in ST II but asks Carol when she appears, “Is that David?”

Later, he says:

KIRK: I did what you wanted. I stayed away. Why didn’t you tell him?

CAROL: How can you ask me that? Were we together? Were we going to be? You had your world, and I had mine. And I wanted him in mine, not chasing through the universe with his father.

Electricorchestra , 10 months ago

Sweet thanks for clearing that up. I really need to rewatch all of the movies again. I really appreciate that the writers of SNW seem to be trekkie enough to catch these things.

plasmoidal , 10 months ago

David wasn’t aware that Kirk was his father

Technically, David did know that his father was an “overgrown boy scout” named Jim Kirk, but they had never met before and evidently knew little about one another aside from their mutual existence.

khaosworks , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

From the dialogue, David, at the point Kirk has the altercation with hin just outside the Genesis Cave, was unaware that Kirk was his father although he knew that his mother knew him. As he said on Regula I:

DAVID: Remember that overgrown Boy Scout you used to hang around with? That’s exactly the kind of man…

CAROL: Listen, kiddo: Jim Kirk was many things, but he was never a Boy Scout.

Carol also doesn’t deny Kirk’s assumption when Kirk asks why she didn’t tell David about him. So it seems clear that David doesn’t know at that moment.

That being said, David may have met Kirk as a child. In the beta canon Kirk does spend time with David as a “friend” of his mother’s, but Carol insists that Kirk not tell David the truth, for the reasons she mentions in ST II about their different worlds.

It’s only after Spock’s funeral that David reveals he knows and is proud to be Kirk’s son. But the way this all makes sense is to assume that David was just told off-screen by Carol about his parentage.

Walrus , 10 months ago

According to the Ready Room, Bruce Horak played the Klingon captain!

r2vq , 10 months ago

The one with the eye patch? Is he only allowed to play virtually impaired characters?

LibraryLass , 10 months ago

He may prefer to-- he is himself legally blind, and completely blind in one eye.

r2vq , 10 months ago

I’m glad he’s able to if that’s what he wants! I just hope he’s not being pigeonholed into roles since he’s a great actor.

Fuzzy_Dunlop , 10 months ago

Ah, thanks. I was confused when I noticed his name in the credits.

ValueSubtracted OP Mod , 10 months ago

I loved the episode overall, but that Klingon fleet should have been commanded by L’Rell herself (though that was an extremely fun way to bring back Bruce Horak without shoehorning the Ghost of Hemmer into it).

GaiusGornicusCaesar , 10 months ago

God I wish there was more Klingon Heavy Metal out there…

CeruleanRuin , 10 months ago

General Gorkog was Bruce Horak? That’s awesome.

Also more fuel for my running theory that Hemmer isn’t truly dead. I think they’re holding onto him for a surprise return in the coming confrontation with the Gorn.

maegul , 10 months ago

but that Klingon fleet should have been commanded by L’Rell herself

Whaaaattt … this exists!! Man … that klingon in the verses really works well! And yes, giving us something a bit more faithful to klingons feels like the missed opportunity of the episode … pretty sure there would have been a way for it be comedic and klingon at the same time.

ValueSubtracted OP Mod , 10 months ago

I’m okay with what they did - they were tapping into the Broadway Musical Universe, after all, not the Epic Klingon Opera Universe.

lagomorphlecture , 10 months ago

I thought it was hilarious and works with their dishonor but I also wouldn’t have loved if they had been head banging to metal or going to town on some Klingon opera.

felixxx999 , 10 months ago

honestly who knew La’an and Uhura would be the main characters this season? And I’m crushing on Chapel and Uhura and La’an right now. This episode only made it worse. Yeah there are three damned handsome guys on the show. But those ladies… might be my favorite of all star trek. La’an’s doomed relationship was heartbreaking btw. I knew this was happening with Spock so it didn’t hit so hard (I thought they’d last longer). Meanwhile Pike’s love (who is also insanely cute with that smile) may be heading for danger now. We need to do a poll to see if the woman on SNW are more loved then the men. And good songs.

z3rOR0ne , 10 months ago

I just want a full on Erica Ortegas back story episode already. But this was a very enjoyable episode. Im not that picky with music in general, and yet also enjoy musicals generally, so I was happy.

leviathan3k , 10 months ago

It occurs to me that her partner died around the filming of.this season, and she may not.have had it in her to be a lead for an episode.

z3rOR0ne , 10 months ago

I didn’t know that.That’s a fair assessment, and makes sense. I hope she takes good care of herself and takes the time she needs to mourn.

triktrek , 10 months ago

She has written a heart-wrenched, tragic letter about this experience and grief. It was very moving/difficult to read and gained me a lot of respect for her:

talkhouse.com/an-actor-a-helmsman-and-my-brian-bo…

z3rOR0ne , 10 months ago

And I just read every inspiring, touching word. Thank you. Deeply, thank you for sharing this.

Hogger85b , 10 months ago

But but lotus eaters was that "she is Erica Ortegas...she drives the ship"....../s

z3rOR0ne , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Yeah, strangely enough, while this kind of character development doesn’t make the show worse, it does make it more obvious (at least to me) that her character hasn’t been given the screen time the others have that dives into her backstory.

Plus that episode is a tease because she starts off excited to do something other than fly the ship with an inner monologue and everything.

Had she gone down to the planet and somehow realized by the end of the episode that she loves flying the ship, or the other characters learning that she’s so much more than just a pilot, that would have been satisfactory to me (at least for a season).