SNW continues to break new ground really well. This was a really refreshing episode and very well done. I for one loooved this episode.
Alright, I get that musicals are not everyone’s cup of tea, but as a person who watched multiple dozens of Broadway musicals, I must say that the songs were really on par with actual musicals. The cast can really sing well – I expected many great things from Cecile Rose Gooding and wow she did not disappoint. I was very pleasantly impressed by Christina Chong, Rebecca Romijin, Ethan Peck’s performances as well.
I think the director made sure to highlight those actors that can sing well and put those that can’t sing into secondary positions. Clearly Grammy-Award winning/Tony Award-nominated Gooding was at the center of the story, and they cut off Anson Mount’s song, because well, he isn’t the greatest singer. They even fully acknowledged that Babs Olusanmokun can’t sing in universe as well. :) The ensemble pieces in the teaser and the finale were superb though and was a lot more entertaining than the solo pieces (which I get is probably much easier to rehearse/record and produce).
I loved that the episode intertwined music as a piece of the story, pushed the character arc forward between Spock/Chapel and La’an/Kirk. I am not so much of a sucker for La’an/Kirk but the alternative universe scenes were really a nice touch. The only cringey part was the Klingon K-pop/rap, but I suppose it was intentionally cringey/funny.
Whether you like this musical episode or not, you gotta admit that SNW really boldly goes where no one has gone before.
At the risk of sounding hypocritical since I posted the question about why Vic Fontaine sang so much in DS9, I do think that Subspace Rhapsody could do well, and I look forward to it. Unlike the Vic Fontaine songs that are one offs short pieces in a non-musical story, Subspace Rhapsody is intentionally a musical and it seems it comes along with some choreographed dancing.
I do like musicals, and I do like Sci-Fi but I get the combination of both is gonna be really tough and not everyone’s cup of tea, but I love that SNW is bold and secure enough to give this a try. From all Sci-Fi shows out there, SNW is probably the best series to give this a shot.
Note that Celia Rose Gooding was a Tony Award-nominated, Grammy Award-winning Broadway singer before they joined Star Trek. The other cast members, not so much singing experience, but we shall see. Whatever happens this Thursday, can’t say it won’t be interesting to see.
The fifth and final season will find Captain Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery uncovering a mystery that will send them on an epic adventure across the galaxy to find an ancient power
Gosh, I really wish Discovery would stop doing the same galaxy-saving mystery season arcs. It was tiring several seasons ago, and it’s still tiring now.
I see that they replaced transporter chief Kyle with an Asian actress, given that André Dae Kim is now unavailable to Star Trek. I wonder if they will develop her character.
We are well into/towards the end of season 2 of SNW, and fans have generally been loving it. I think it’s fair to say that SNW has been and will likely be successful for a while. SNW certainly has one of the best first seasons (along with Lower Decks).
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.
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.