I love musicals and I love Trek so I was hoping I would love this episode, but I just didn’t, and I think it was mostly because the music was… bad? It wasn’t catchy, it wasn’t fun, there was not one single legitimate bop during the whole episode. Uhura’s last line about an earworm struck me as a sour note because… no. Not a single earworm to be had in the whole thing. I couldn’t hum a single song from that episode and I watched it less than an hour ago. The only number that had any spark to it at all was Chapel’s number at the lounge, and it was barely a spark.
Even Una’s alleged Gilbert and Sullivan riff was barely, barely recognizable as a take on G&S. It was to G&S as a brick spraypainted orange is to a glass of refreshing orange juice. You’re gonna do G&S in a musical episode and not do patter? Come on, son.
I just can’t get behind this episode, and I was truly prepared to be thrilled. I mean the cast tried hard, but in a musical the music has to be good, and this wasn’t.
The viewer naturally sympathizes with Worf and adopts his view of Klingon culture, but remember that he was raised by humans and most of his knowledge of Klingon culture came from very early childhood and books. Imagine a human child raised by another species whose knowledge of Human culture came from fairy tales and like Arthurian stories. He’d come to earth and be outraged that everyone isn’t following some virtuous code of chivalry. A politician broke his word? DUEL TO THE DEATH! That’s Worf.
TBH I think TNG did this very well with the Klingons (depending on who was writing the episode, of course). Like, some Klingons were Real Klingons™ but many others only gave lip service to those ideals and were actually as sneaky and cowardly as any other race. I think a lot of Worf’s inner conflict came from realizing and processing that fact.
Whyyyy would Vulcan kitchens run cooler than starships? Vulcan is a desert planet and Vulcans as a species are accustomed to high temps – which is even obliquely referenced in the ep when Amanda says that a Vulcan wouldn’t even notice the heat from holding a boiling hot teapot barehanded. I would assume Vulcan kitchens to be higher temperature than even Vulcan living quarters, which should be higher than human-standard room temp. I can’t think of any legitimate reasons why a Vulcan kitchen would be cooler than Pike’s quarters at all, let alone so much cooler that it makes a manifest difference in fermentation rates.
Yeah! I was wondering that too. Either it was a flub that they left in because it was funny, or it was a flub that they left in because they didn’t have another good take, or it’s a breadcrumb for a weird AI-takes-over-the-Enterprise season finale.
