Is this podcast worthwhile? Are there any new insights into 90s Trek that we didn’t have before? I’m asking because 1½-2 hours per episode is a bit too long for my taste, so I’d only listen to it if it’s really good.
I’ve been a Star Trek fan since I was in primary school, back when TNG originally aired. (my favourite is DS9) I love Strange New Worlds. It has reignited my love for Star Trek, even more than Lower Decks already did.
And I can’t say this often enough: I have a friend who grew up with TOS when that originally aired. And he never really liked any Star Trek that was produced after 1969. But he too loves Strange New Worlds. It’s a great amalgam of TOS (by being episodic and not taking everything too seriously), 90s Trek (by tackling important societal issues here and there, and being really serious when it needs to), and modern Trek (the production quality and the storytelling).
Also, the entire cast is super talented. Personally, I’d say that Christina Chong is the breakout star because she’s always giving everything, even if she’s just there for a quick reaction shot. But it’s hard to pick because they are all so good.
The only thing that bugs me is that they barely have the time to do something with all of their characters (with only 10 episodes per season) but keep adding new characters to the ensemble.
tl;dr - yeah, it’s a great classic Star Trek show mixed with modern elements
I’m surprised that the rates are as high as they are. TOS had only 1 female character in the main cast. TNG (after Tasha left), DS9 and ENT only had two. So disregarding any guest characters the female main characters don’t have a lot of choice of whom to talk to, if they want to pass the test.
If you’re not just looking for novels I would like to highly recommend two non-fiction books: “The Fifty-Year Mission: The first 25 years” and “The Fifty-Year Mission: the next 25 years” by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross. The books tell the oral history of Star Trek up until 2016. They consist entirely of interview snippets from cast and crew, sorted chronologically and thematically. It’s a super interesting look behind the scenes.
Or maybe Batel becomes their version of Locutus, to somehow communicate with them.
To be honest I’m still undecided whether I want the Gorn to stay this unstoppable force of horror, or to find a Trek-style form of coming to some sort of peace agreement. In that aspect I liked how Admiral April tried to keep Pike in check at the beginning of the episode.
Seeing that every one that will not be in TOS is now in Gorn hand’s I think we already know why.
M’Benga and Sam Kirk show up in TOS though. The only one in danger is La’an. (and I’d be pissed if something happened to her because I think that Christina Chong is a super strong actor, and possibly the breakout star of this show)
I loved the colony design. It kinda makes sense. There’s an endless number of planets out there, so why not found a colony for your weird LARP phantasies? “Hey, you wanna join my colony reminiscent of Victorian England? There’d be bustle skirts, butlers and bat’leths.”
I had a feeling right from the urgency of the first minutes that they were setting this episode up as SNW’s version of “The Best of Both Worlds”. And the elements are certainly there. A superior enemy. A plan to fool them with technobabble. A crewmember held hostage – just this time it’s split up between Captain Batel being infected, and La’an, M’Benga and Kirk (and colonists) captured. And a cliffhanger. I had hoped that they wouldn’t do cliffhangers in this show – especially season-ending cliffhangers when we don’t even know when the next season will air. (2025 maybe?) Or if they did it then at least do it DS9 style where it’s more like a teaser of things to come instead of an actual cliffhanger.
Oh well, at least they didn’t kill off Batel immediately, and I hope they won’t do it in season 3. I’d like to see more of her and of her relationship with Pike because I think it’s a really interesting relationship dynamic for a Starfleet captain to have a truly equal partner.
I’m not quite keen on the physics in this episode. Would the Gorn really be fooled by the Cayuga’s saucer suddenly “naturally” accelerating towards the planet from the orbit of its moon? That already bugged me in Star Trek Into Darkness when the ship suddenly “fell” towards Earth. Yes, this is a Science Fiction show but they could really use a science advisor for this basic stuff.
Finally, I wonder if every season will bring in another TOS cast member, and who will be next. Sulu? (he’d be an astroscientist though, unless they ignore the 2nd TOS pilot episode) Cadet Chekov? Bones? Janice Rand?
This all sounds a bit negative but I actually enjoyed the episode. It wasn’t the best episode of the season but still above average. I just hope that season 3 will come rather sooner than later.
I would somewhat agree with you if we were just talking about ranking Star Trek episodes specifically. If Subspace Rhapsody is among the worst Star Trek episodes you’ve ever seen, then sure, give it a 1. That makes sense on Star Trek specific review websites like jammersreviews.com.
But we’re talking about IMDb which ranks all TV shows and all movies, so the ranking scale encompasses everything you’ve ever seen on screen. And now tell me again with a straight face that a well-produced well-written well-acted show ranks in the same 1-star category as the worst non-scripted reality trash TV you’ve ever seen.
