Strange New Worlds Season 2

In a different timeline I could have had twenty posts instead of two but Romulan time agents stopped that happening.

1. “The Broken Circle” This one feels like a Discovery episode. There are undercover Klingon shenanigans, M’Benga and Chapel take magic drugs that turn them into Klingon fighting badasses, Spock steals the Enterprise, and they nearly start a new Klingon war, and nobody official really cares. It’s not a terrible episode, but it feels like somebody wanted a bunch of cool things to happen without thinking about how it all fits together as an episode or within the series. Having said that, the drug that helps you fight Klingons does get an explanation in a later episode.
2. “Ad Astra per Aspera” Both Picard and Pike are moral men but that can come over as just being judgemental about alien societies. To test them or their crew, the shows place them in positions of having to deal with an institutionalised bigotry within the Federation or Star Fleet. This episode has a lot in common with the TNG episode The Measure of a Man, in which Data’s autonomy is put on trial. Here Una aka Number One is on trial for hiding that she was a genetically modified Illyrian. This obviously makes very little sense but you need to suspend your disbelief a bit and it all sort of works.
3. “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” SNW is generous in having multiple episodes that centre on a character other than Pike. This time security officer La’an finds herself in a parallel timeline in which the Federation doesn’t exist & Kirk is captain. Then she and Kirk find themselves in the present(ish) day…in Toronto. Travelling back to Earth history is a classic Trek plot and this is nicely done. I quite like the SNW Kirk but he feels like a similar but different character in a way that Uhura and Spock don’t.
4. “Among the Lotus Eaters” I really liked this episode. There is a big handwavy aspect to people slowly losing their longterm memories but the horror of it is well done. The main plot is on the planet but the part where Erica Ortegas has to deal with not knowing what is going on and having a major meltdown AND THEN piloting the ship was brilliant. Ortegas hasn’t had a major focus episode yet, which is weird as she’s the best wholly new character.
5. “Charades” If you enjoyed Spock Amok, it is time for more sitcom shenanigans as the Alpha Quadrant’s most messed up love triangle of Chapel/T’Pring/Spock faces what happens when Spock becomes human. It’s funny how Ethan Peck is a convincing Spock but once human he just looks like Ethan Peck. Everybody on the Enterprise is WAY too good-looking. If I was on this ship I’d have to avoid visiting sickbay because I’d just become speechless in the presence of Chapel and I’d probably end up dead from an Illyrian plague or Gorn babies eating my brain. Zero points to the whole show for NOT actually showing Vulcans playing a whole game of Charades.
6. “Lost in Translation” SNW doing a very Trekky episode with Uhura at the centre of it. This show offers regular hits of stories that could be stories from multiple iterations of the show. Nicely done.
7. “Those Old Scientists” A gimmick but one that works. Lower Decks Boimler accidentaly activates a portal on a routine (animated) away mission and finds himself (live action) on the Enterprise and has a fan boy freak out. Nicely done.
8. “Under the Cloak of War” Flashbacks to the Klingon War means we have another very Disco Season 1 episode but this one is better done with an emphasis on the horrors of war and the moral question of culpability for war crimes versus the need to move on in pursuit of peace.
9. “Subspace Rhapsody” I like a show that takes risks and one obvious risk is heading into the territory of cringe. However, not unlike “The Elysian Kingdom” episode in season 1, the charismatic cast and the established dynamic between the characters pulls this one off. Star Trek needs its silly episodes and this one proves to be one of the best examples. It’s not Trouble With Tribbles but it is great fun. Celia Rose Gooding (Uhura) is a talented Broadway performer and is once again the lynchpin of the whole thing but the whole cast have a great time.
10. “Hegemony” The most TNG thing a Trek show can do is have a big end-of-season cross-over with the big bad guys the show has been trying to establish. Melanie Scrofano aka Wynnona Earp aka Captain Batel finally gets more screen time but in the worst circumstances. We also get SNW’s introduction of Montgomery Scott. Can Pike defeat the Gorn? Find out in season 3!

Another fun season. I enjoyed even the weaker parts. I like how this show tribute to Majel Barrett is to have two very different-looking but quite stunning actors play the characters she originated. In season 3, the Enterprise finds itself trapped in a sub-space anomaly due to space-time folding in improbable ways just because the whole crew is just far too good-looking. To escape Captain Pike has his hair cut into a mullet.