Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

I'll say it, the adult gorn, in those space suits look awesome, I'm a sucker for more animalistic races in star trek
- The adult gorn was easily my favourite part of the episode!
  There's clearly a horror strain in the Gorn arc, with pretty strong echos/homages of Alien ... and I am all here for it. With the scene of Batel warding off the young Gorn, I knew straight away she'd been impregnated because of the clear Alien reference.
  
  I really liked the subtle hints. They arent just savage creatures. They have advanced technology. Communicate in ways humans cant understand at all. Use tech in ways most humans cant handle as well. Etc etc.
  Trek would do good to have more species that arent humanoid. It makes for a much more interesting show.
  
  We're a long way from the silly rubber suit. They're terrifying and the way they reproduce and use that tale screams xenomorph.
- I’m a sucker for more animalistic races in star trek
  Bring back the Xindi insectoids!!!
  
  They showed up in Prodigy as I recall
- I'm impressed by Gorn engineering now. Making a space suit with what looked like dozens of vacuum- grade articulated tail joints can't be easy.
- me too. we need more of the Gorn in other trek adaptions
- The one thing I want to see is an Edosian in a live action Star Trek series.

Adored seeing Scotty show up. I am worried about Batel being infected, as I love seeing a strong woman Star Trek captain and love her relationship with Pike. Lots of hints that the Gorn are not just “monsters”. They are the Borg of pre-TOS era, as someone mentioned.
I hate cliffhangers though. I agree, how long before we see the next episode, especially with the strike.
- While a strong woman, they've done shockingly little to tell us anything about her until the last episode when we find out she likes tourism. But we know precious little of her personality and most of the relationship has been seen from Chris' side. I think she's been written to be disposable. But I'd love it if they save her and actually develop her more.
  
  I hope she lives because I like her as a captain. She seems very laid back and I feel like Starfleet being huge and all there would be a few captains that are pretty chill.
  
  We do know she is smart (ad astra episode where she is a lawyer), loyal (she tried to help Una) and doesn’t let Chris lie to her.
- I keep hoping Sam Kirk or someone else (even a female character) gets some space lovin’ going on. Everyone on TOS was much more swinging space 60s, and Jim Kirk was quite the lothario, but everyone on this show is much more traditional romantic.
- @praxi maybe they keep Batel in the buffer of the medical transporter like M'Benga did with his daughter in season one.
  
  I hope they can find a cure besides the transporter buffer, because I am worried the hundreds of people beamed onto the Gorn ship may also have been infected.

The more I think about the Chapel plot, the more I think it was a blunder.
If she survived the initial attack on the Cayuga, it's likely that others did, too - at the very least, it should give Spock a reason to look before hot-dropping the saucer onto the planet.
- Gotta agree, it seems like an unforced error. A good chunk of the audience knows she shows up in TOS, which robs the whole idea of any tension it might have, and on top of that it feels plot armor-y to have one person survive and then not check for anyone else.
  They could've just contrived to have Spock and Chapel be the best persons for the saucer deorbiting-- Spock as the precise vulcan/science officer to place the thrusters, Chapel as medbay's lead in case they could bring anyone back from the Cayuga.
  
  I'm fine with Chapel being stuck there - I think the tension comes from the overall Spock/Chapel emotional arc, rather than wondering whether she will survive - but the sequence practically demands a second scan with the newfangled tricorders to verify that there are no other life signs on the ship.
- Agreed, the entire saucer section was on the Federation side of the line of demarcation, they could have openly had rescue teams checking for survivors
  
  Which does raise the question of why there was a Gorn aboard the wreck of the Cayuga.
  The Gorn drew up the demarcation line and broadcast it to the Federation, held their fire as promised, and did not consider the arrival of another Gorn ship as a hostile action.
  So the Enterprise sending a shuttle to check the parts of the Cayuga’s wreckage for survivors is something that appears permitted and even expected, so long as it doesn’t cross the line.
  But any such rescue party would then bump into this lone Gorn who was very clearly violating the demarcation line that they themselves proposed.
  Sort of feels like the attack on the colony was unplanned, and that the later Gorn ship was playing damage control while trying to figure out what happened.

HOLY CRAP, I AM SO GLAD I WENT INTO THIS SPOILER FREE!!!1!
Someone posted earlier this week that it looked like Captain Batel was having a really bad day, and yup, she definitely was. My heart sank when she revealed the Gorn egg infestation. My money's on her being the sole "main" character casualty from the events of this episode.
I didn't know Scotty was going to show up so that was a total surprise. Finding out he was Pelia's perfect student who somehow flunked made all the sense in the world, ignoring the obvious small universe complaints.
I LOVED all the effects shots of the Cuyuga's debris field. I initially thought crashing the remains of the saucer section into the Gorn jammer was complete overkill, like throwing a dinner plate at a toothpick, but then realized the jammer must have been absolutely massive and far away from the settlement. It looked like it was relatively nearby upon initial viewing which didn't appear to be the case considering the explosion from when the saucer section hit it.
That cliffhanger, wow. I pray that they have the second half already written and aren't going to do like TNG and wait to write the conclusion. It was mentioned in the TNG Companion that the writers only wrote the first part of their season ending cliffhangers and waited until closer to filming to write and finalize the second part which doesn't seem like the best way to develop a strong resolution.
I love SNW so much. It's going to be an agonizing wait until the new season, probably 2025 at this point? Argh.
EDIT: I swear I didn't read any posts in this thread before posting my thoughts. I'm glad and amused to see we Trek fans had many of the same reactions!
- I think we can excuse the fact that apparently everyone and their transporter clone had Pelia as their engineering professor. She's been at the academy for so long, I wouldn't be surprised if she dated Boothby on and off again or at least got him into gardening.
  There's a long tradition in star trek where characters talk about one particular professor or class at the Academy and the other character always knows who the professor is.
- Ah butts. Until I read your post I forgot that a writers strike is going to make the outcome of this episode up in the air.
  Pay your writers big corpos and stop trying to figure out how to reanimate actors corpses with Ai so you can use them forever !
- The TNG writers held off on writing BOBW2 at least partially because Patrick Stewart was renegotiating his contract and they needed to know if he was staying on. I doubt that's a concern with SNW. The writers strike could be a problem, though.
  
  Season 3 was originally scheduled to start production May 2nd, just before the start of the strike. It’s only the impending strike date that caused them to stand down on that.
  This tells us that the script for the season premiere has been locked for some time.

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.
- Yeah, the colonists in this episode intentionally curating the a small-town experience is pretty subtle worldbuilding, but tees into the crazier variants like the Hysperians from Lower decks.
- I'm not the most accurate and precise regarding the lore but for what I remember of TOS (that was my favorite series) we should expect Sulu being the next one, then Bones should be in the cast together with Kirk later. Seeing that every one that will not be in TOS is now in Gorn hand's I think we already know why. I don't think it's a coincidence
  
  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)
  
  How about we slow down and let the current cast own the show rather than it all being about rebuilding the TOS cast one by one?

I agree with most people here. Great episode as long as you kinda ignore the fact that only Chapel survived in the saucer section and neither her nor Spock made any attempt to look for anyone else or even acknowledge it.
Rest of the episode I loved and I’m now just a bit sad we are going have to wait so long for the next series.
That being said, I absolutely support the strikes so I’m not complaining about the wait.
- They just had to say something like "Scans show nobody's alive in the saucer section" and everything would be fine I guess.
  
  The whole point was scans were down UNTIL they slammed saucer into planet. They couldn't detect chapel due to the beam the saucer was used to destroy
  
  Let’s wait until part two.
  I think we may already have enough to figure out what happened but the technological explanation is yet to come. Much of the plot mechanics related to the Gorn so far rely on issues around what can be detected or transmitted and differences in solutions.
  The writers’ challenge for the saucer subplot was that they wanted Spock to be surprised by both the adult Gorn in the environment suit and by Christine Chapel.
  Their arrivals behind Spock on the exterior of the saucer were both unexpected, and were key elements of the suspense. His surprise and ours was necessary.
  We would have expected however Spock to have done some kind of local tricorder scan of the wreckage when he arrived. It’s possible that a tricorder scan was done, was negative, but we didn’t hear any report because there were no vocal coms back to the Enterprise. Uhura gave a play by play based on telemetry, we didn’t hear Spock report directly.
  In that case, we’re owed an explanation about why the new tricorder technology failed. As long as we get it in the second part, I’d be fine.
  Given the established interference field technology of the Gorn, I would be perfectly comfortable if the follow up episode acknowledged that the Gorn environmental suits put out some kind of localized disruptive stealth.
  The new Starfleet tricorder technology is designed for unsuited Gorn. It’s designed to solve the problem of Gorn biology but not Gorn technology.
  Gorn technology is different, they are driven by different species biological imperatives (as in the coronal flares), and that’s an extra hurdle for Starfleet.
  We have already seen however that Scott designed a system to both spoof human life signs to Starfleet tricorders and Gorn as well as hide human life signs for hundreds of people. To do this, he used some of the specialized technology from the scientific research array that was studying the nearby sun.
  Spock would naturally follow up on his surprise encounter on the saucer. Scott would be the natural collaborator to figure out how it was that the Gorn came up behind him undetected by his tricorder.
  So then, what about Chapel in the saucer? If she was the sole human life form, and he completed the scan, why didn’t his technology detect her?
  A couple of possibilities exist.
  -- Chapel’s suit has some local stealth technology. She got into her suit as soon as she saw Spock pass by. Given it was in her quarters it’s a personal suit not a generic one, and she’s established as being a war veteran who had to fight despite being medical corps, and/or
  -- the distortion field or stealth technology put out by the Gorn’s environmental suit was large enough to hide her as well.

As I note in my annotations, I got very emotional whenever I heard them refer to Scotty as “Mr Scott”. Not sure why, it just sounded so right. When they said, “Thank you, Mr Scott,” I mentally added: “That’s something he’s going to get used to hearing over the years.”
The moment I heard Pike say he missed Batel and then praise Ortegas I immediately knew they were going to be placed in jeopardy and sure enough…
It was also immediately obvious when the Gorn youngling left Batel alone why it did so, so glad they didn’t string that out as some big mystery.
The colony design meant that filming exteriors was cheaper, I suppose. It’s the equivalent of building a gated community as a Ren Faire, though there’d definitely be a demand for it.
Wish they’d have given some hints to why that Gorn was on the Cayuga saucer, though. Why was it trying to access command level functions? Intel or something else? And how did it get there without Enterprise noticing or was it there before they arrived? Questions, questions…
At least Martin Quinn, who plays Scotty, is a Paisley boy like David Tennant and Steven Moffat, which means using his natural accent will be easier to make out, as the Paisley accent is less harsh than, say, a Glaswegian one. He’s a bit young for Scotty though, at 28. I’d always assumed Scotty was at least five to ten years older than Kirk.
Nice, fast moving action finale - but I echo the frustration at having this be a cliffhanger.
- I swear if anything bad happens to Ortegas I will riot. That lady has surpassed Tom Paris as my favorite pilot and with all the banter with Pike I worry for her well-being.
  
  I imagine they left it open on purpose to allow Melissa Navia, who had a pretty rough year during production of season 2, an opportunity to be written out of the story.
  I would love for her to continue though, because I like her way more than Tom Paris, too.
- I would like to know why the Gorn was there too, but the Gorn didn't notice Spock boarding and so there's no reason to believe Enterprise would have notice a Gorn boarding. It's also possible it was beamed over when the Cayuga was destroyed to find something or to access the ships systems.

Martin Quinn (Montgomery Scott) was reportedly born in Paisley, Scotland.
Dropping in to note that I’m feeling very smuggly self-satisfied that I decided not to completely abandon my alias when we migrated from the other place.
I guess that I must now become an unrepentant SNW Scotty stan. I look forward to seeing the character grow.
- That's the first actually Scottish Scotty isn't it?
  
  Yes. Born in Paisley (like David Tennant), and out of Scotland’s National Theatre Company, no less.

Anyone else notice that the 2 people on the shuttle down who didn't have plot armor (Ortegas and La’an) were wearing red shirts?
- There was at least one unnamed, previously unseen red shirt on the bridge as well. That was a hint there was going to be a body count. Of course, it could also mean that no one dies and the production staff are just playing into our expectations.
- Ortegas was in the alternate future with Pike at the time of "A Quality of Mercy", which is not necessarily "plot armour" but if we assume the timeline still hasn't diverged — Pike not having had his accident yet — then it would seem reasonable she should get through to survive long enough to see the point of divergence and therefore survive long enough to be on the bridge with Pike when he meets the Romulans. However, that's all very timey-wimey and subject to a lot of "maybes" and "what-ifs".
  
  A Quality of Mercy also showed Una in prison, and Those Old Scientists implied she's revered. Did sending that letter prevent Pike from recruiting her lawyer? Things are already not heading down the exact timeline we saw Ortegas alive in.

THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS AS I WATCH:
NOOO, I DON'T WANT THIS TO END!
Previously: The various stuff happened.
Oh, hey, Cayuga captains log.
Nice of them to have a colony modeled after an Earth town. Saves on budget.
"SIGNAL LOST." In space, a dropped call can mean only one thing: Invasion.
Oh, we're doing the Independence Day thing?
Telling a Starfleet captain to just do reconnaissance is basically telling them to go weapons free.
Nice little tinge of one of the TOS scores at the end of the cold open. Someone more geekier than I can probably place it.
If you ever feel like you are useless in life, just remember that there is a "skip intro" button during a "Space, the Final Frontier" monologue.
Is the "Gorn Protocol" a hand-cannon with with a diamond?
She flies the ship!
I'd like to imagine there is a deleted scene where they glue every piece of junk they have onto the shuttle.
If they're going to do a "is someone still alive in the wreckage" storyline, they probably should have flip-flopped Batel and Chapel's spots, given that we obviously know she's going to live.
They keep giving Jenna Mitchell lines! FREE MITCHELL! Give that actreess a cast credit, cowards!
Ah, a good old fashioned beam into the sky.
Oh, look, a Gornzooky!
And... vaporized.
More Gornzookies!
Oh my god, it's young Scotty. Hopefully this means Keenser is there. I always loved Keenser and his ability to sit on things he isn't supposed to.
Doesn't seem like Keenser is there :(
Of course Scotty would engineer a way to save people. He truly is a miracle worker.
Smashing a piece of space debris is a very... brilliant idea.
Pelia continuing to harass Una for her poor academics in engineering.
Why do I get the feeling that whatever plan Spock has to put the rockets on the hull will also allow him to check for survivors?
Wow, imagine that, Chapel is alive! Imagine that! Whoever would have thought! (Seriously they should have flip-flopped her and Batel if they were going to do this)
USE THE MORSE, CHRISTINE!
Oh, now she grabs the spacesuit. Although I guess she didn't need it yet.
WARNING: GORNZOOKY
COMMAND CODE INVALID'
That looks like a bigger Gorn. An adult? Or at least like a teenager.
So incredibly Alien.
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF HIM, YOU BITCH!"
Oh shit, she's been impregnated with gornzookies. A very zombie movie trope.
"There'll be time later." Before or after you get engaged to Dr. Korby?
"We need to abort some Gornzookies."
Yeah, Scotty would be a shitty student despite being brilliant.
OH FUCK THE GORN KIDNAPPED THEM
TO BE CONTINUED?!?!!?! Okay, who wants to drive to Hollywood and personally beat up some billionaires? I want this strike over NOW and I want a conclusion WITHIN A YEAR, A YEAR AND A HALF MAX!
- @Continuumguy @startrek If Starfleet has weapons that work against the Gorn, why keep them secret?!
  
  (Ignoring sloppy writing as the reason…)
  Star Fleet seems to like to compartmentalize information. Examples:
  At least post ‘First Contact’ they had hints of the Borg before ‘Q Who’ but kept it quiet. Similarly the Genesis device information was on a need to know basis (although probably for good reason). There was also that Voyager episode based around the Omega directive that only Janeway knew about.
  
  I think they are still trying diplomacy with the gorn, admiral april says they want to try to bring them in and see if they can be allies. Star fleet doesn't want to be outward threat
  Also I think admirals are downplaying the gorn threat, maybe not to scare citizens
- I want to know what ST fan actually skips the openings. Especially SNW, LD, DS9... yes the French Horns rock.
  
  Strangely LD seems to me to be THE MOST CATCHY Star Trek theme. Every time I hear it it's playing in my head for the next 24 hours. Not saying it's the best, it's great, but goddamn does it burrow its way into my brain
  
  It's been a long road, getting from there to here...

A cliffhanger... I was hoping they wouldn't introduce those. I expect Sam and M'Benga will be the only one who makes it out alive... expecting to see Sulu and Chekov introduced soon.
Edit: Also the "They've been beamed up... by the gorn" and Pike standing there has the potential to be one of the most horrifying cliffhangers in Star Trek.
2nd Edit: Not Chekov....
- Wouldn't prime!Chekov be like 12 around this time frame?
  
  Nevermind, forgot that Chekov wasn't introduced until Season 2... but Sulu is a possibility.
- Also not Sulu if Sam Kirk is hanging around. Sulu was some kind of xenobiologist (xenobotanist?) in the opening episodes of TOS. The move to alpha shift helmsman came later.
  
  Need to rewatch TOS then, memory's got a bit rusty. Thanks!

- I love how they tock one of the most laughable elements of TOS and made the Gorn into a terrifying and interesting enemy. I genuinely want to know about Gorn society.
  
  This exactly. Using something closer to the xenomorphs of Alien, introduces a truly frightening species that is sufficiently different that their kind of intelligence and motivations are believably difficult for Federation humanoids to understand.
  I know there are other older fans struggling with this, but I think it’s saving the Gorn and Arena from absurdity.
  No matter how compelling the story, TOS Arena’s ridiculous rubber suit Gorn has become one of the most recognized images from the franchise in popular culture.
  Even as a child watching the episode in its first run it seemed more like silly monster movie stuff. It didn’t have the quality of truly scary monsters of that era such as the Creature of the Black Lagoon. It wasn’t in any way reaching Roddenberry’s target high value sci-fi standard of Forbidden Planet or even The Cage.
  More, with so many later stories of Kirk and other captains welcoming the strange and different, coming to terms with very alien species, we need to be shown why Kirk was so hostile to the Gorn by the time of TOS.
  While they could have gone for some other kind of reptilian, I like SNW’s choice to go with a the biology of parasitic R-breeder. Roddenberry’s original concept for the Ferengi was closer to the parasitic bat people of Andromeda than what TNG and DS9 gave us. The updated Gorn can be viewed as incorporating that idea and making them as terrifying.

The location they filmed the town at is the same one used in the Wednesday TV series, which was a bit distracting for me, although I suppose if anyone wants to do a crossover Wednesday/Star Trek fanfic, it'll be super-easy, lol.

Uggggh, not a cliffhanger!!! Damn them! Ok, how long till season 03?
- With the strikes and every production on halt and needing to restart? Maybe early 2025 if we're lucky. Earlier is possible I guess if the parts settle in the not too distant future and CBS put prio on SNW once things resume.
- It may be a while, depending on when they settle the SAG-AFTRA/WGA strike.

Chapel: [restores life support on the saucer]
Spock: [straps rockets to the saucer and yeets it into a planet]
Chapel: surprisedpikachu.gif

On the whole a solid episode and the Scott appearance was very surprising and well done.
However why the hell is Christine the only survivor on the cayuga, it makes no sense at all.
Also the fucking cliffhanger is ridiculous

They did it again TOS purists ::: spoiler spoiler you wanted a rubber suit, so they gave you a rubber suit. :::

My biggest gripe with this episode is ::: spoiler spoiler that it could been easily a double episode THIS SEASON with more breath, I hate those cliffhangers but the plot armor was too strong here, we already know who will survive and who don't even before the start of the episode xD
I expect we’ll see Sulu, McCoy and more Scotty next season:::
- "Man sure hope no one else was alive on the saucer section before I viking funeral'd it" ~ Nurse Chapel

I like that Pike avoids conflict whenever he can. And him not immediately knowing what to do at the end is so him. I'm confident that none of the cast will be killed off. Just unnamed red shirts.
- They seem to be bookending the season with flashbacks to Pike's expedition to Rigel VII. His decision to withdraw there cost people their lives and led to Zak corrupting the local culture. Now he's back under fire, under seemingly unwinnable odds, and forced to make the call to leave people behind again.

Some of the special effects for the gorn babies (especially the jump scare in the barbershop) were one plate of curry away from being right at home in 1980s Red Dwarf. Oh how I cringed!
But a great episode.
- I thought they looked like high-budget Scarrans
- It's cold outside...
  
  Apropos of this episode:
  I'm all alone, more or less
- In season 1 they used a lot of practical effects (i.e. puppets) for the Gorn babies and then layered CG atop. They may have done the same here.

Scotty!
Playing it kinda like Simon pegg, Which is honestly great. Looking forward to seeing more tos characters introduced next season.
- Looking forward to seeing more tos characters introduced next season.
  I am the opposite. I was hoping SNW would be its own TOS era but modernised show without being beholden to TOS apart from whatever canon we have for pike and Spock.
  TBH, this transition into TOS prequel has tainted the show for me. I’ll prob never love it. We got more Scotty in this episode than we did Ortegas, La’an or Number One (or their abouts). I know about Scotty. He’s been rebooted already in the past decade or so. How about more SNW characters?! How about new characters?!
  I’m pretty comfortable on this hill now.
  
  I've long accepted that SNW is basically an ensemble anthology show and TOS crew and others will rotate in and out as needed. The only fixed character is the Enterprise.
  
  To me it was a TOS prequel from the start, I was expecting characters from the original to be introduced at some point, even if they end up being one or two episode cameos until closer to the end of the series where it has to at some point hand over to kirks enterprise with his crew. They are of course giving Kirk some more time than that as his character needs to be built into the kirk that will take command in a few in universe years, Spock is still young and learning to be fully Vulcan, Uhura is young and still building confidence etc etc etc.
  I suspect we will get similar 2 or 3 episode arcs for the other as-yet unseen TOS crew in the next couple of seasons, I don't know how many seasons they are planning on, but I suspect 5 or 6 considering it is the flagship show in the franchise and as a whole is doing increasingly well.
  
  I very much wanted SNW to be its own show for at least a few seasons.
  It’s not the Pike’s Enterprise I fan-campaigned for based on The Cage or Discovery season two.
  I’m enjoying it for what it is even so, and accepting that the powers that be at Paramount wanted ‘familiar faces’ in their new Star Trek offerings, which means legacy characters. It’s the best of the new live action Trek whatever. All to say that I appreciate your frustration, I’ve decided to make peace with it myself.