Under the Cloak of War

Maybe I wasn't expecting much and a very cliche'd story, and the quality of this episode took me off guard, but this has to be the best episode of nu Trek I've seen thus far. Rivals some of the best DS9 episodes on war and it's consequences.

Shades of grey is an understatement. Certainly a realistic portrayal on the horrors of war and how it changes a person, how nation states try to recover from the damage of others....and sometimes...those wounds never heal.

My family came from South America, and had family who died in the holocaust. Living next to Nazis in Argentina.... I can imagine they had very similar thoughts running through their head. I'd lie if I say I didn't fantasize it myself.

Some of the reviewers here a lamenting on this episode being 'anti trek' or that casting the character in question was wrong.

I disagree: Trek has ALWAYS been about the morally grey. Starfleet serves a noble purpose. No one is disputing that....but the lived experiences of another can't be discarded or assumed it doesn't have impact. It most certainly does. Doesn't justify what happened. Nor excuse it....but it is a moral debate for sure.

And that IS the purpose of Trek: if an episode left you conflicted and challenged your own perspective on morality, then it did it's job.

The best thing about Strange New Worlds is that it has put sincere effort into developing its crew.

Although many people disliked Discovery, I mostly enjoyed it. However, I say that while having never finished S4 & stopped there, as I just lost interest in its characters. If you asked me right now to name the crew without looking it up, I'd remember Burnham, Saru and.... well that's it.

SNW is the exact opposite. I can instantly name Una, nurse Chapel, Spock, Uhura, Captain Pike, Ortegas, etc. Etc. Etc... even Hemmer (RIP), Sam Kirk or T'Pring! But most importantly for this episode, I remember Dr. M'Benga, who is the standout character for the entire series to this point (imo).

Older Trek ran 20+ episode seasons, so we'd get a lot of time to get to know everyone. We still haven't even hit the 20 episode mark in SNW yet, but they've already done a fantastic job exploring a lot of M'Benga's character & his unique place amongst the crew.

We were first shown he's keeping a secret from the crew, and that he has a sick daughter who's transporter pattern is being stored in sickbay in hopes that one day he can find a cure while exploring the stars in the Enterprise. We got to see he has a shared war history with nurse Chapel, which was later fleshed out in further interactions & flashbacks. We learned he was extremely skilled at combat, and suffers PTSD from his service in the Klingon War.

Now in this episode they peel back another layer of that onion, revealing he developed Protocol 12, a drug we saw them use previously, which allowed them to be temporarily enhanced fighting machines, and that he's got quite a notorious reputation that nobody knows about (aside from Chapel, presumably).

I don't want to get into any major spoilers, but needless to say, I thought this episode was excellent. I didn't even touch on the premise of a reformed Klingon General-turned Federation Ambassador visiting the ship, but that's just the vehicle use to explore more of our doctor & nurse's past.

If Deep Space 9 was written & filmed in 2023, this episode would fit right in. It reminds us of the multiple sides to Starfleet, just as there are multiple sides to people. With M'Benga, he may strive to achieve a certain ideal, but some wounds are still too fresh.

The end reminds me of what Captain Sisko said at the end of In the Pale Moonlight - "I lied. I cheated. I bribed men to cover the crimes of other men... I am an accessory to murder. But the most damning think of all - I think I can live with it. And if I had to do it all over again, I would." M'Benga seems to feel the same way about how things played out.

TL;DR - 10/10. Love the Episode!

Frankly my wife and I are not enjoying season two as much. Some of the episodes seem silly and downright pointless.

And then this. I was genuinely moved by this episode. Great story, good dialogue with some memorable lines (why we fight), some of the best acting I've seen. What toll does war take on people? Starfleet for all its idealism and the Federation for all its "smug optimism" (to quote Garak) cannot diplomatic courtesy its way past this. War is hell. And how much can we forgive war criminals no matter how much they appear to reform?

I changed my rating from 10/10 to 9/10 because of the ending.

What's strange is how much Nurse Chapel and Dr M'Benga have become the most interesting and compelling characters in the series. And props to Jess Bush and especially Babs Olusanmokun for their acting. Credit to Melissa Navia as Lt Vargas who gets to shine for a change.

"Under the Cloak of War" is by far the strongest writing in SNW thus far. Despite various flaws - the M*A*S*H undertones, hints to the TOS episode "Conscience of the King," the obvious folly of land war in the age of space war, a Klingon with straight human teeth who walks with a cane but can do Klingon Judo just fine - what the episode has to say is what's poignant here.

We learn the history behind Chapel's bond with M'Benga and their apparent super-human abilities exhibited in the season opener "The Broken Circle." It's not pretty.

The story telling here is very good, told in flash-back and tight dialog, with an ending that is both tragic and ambiguous - we will never know the truth.

The only complaint I have (there had to be one) was with the casting (or perhaps directing) of Robert Wisdom as Dak'Rah. He's just too Tony Robbins for a Klingon. His lack of prosthetic teeth was distracting.

Also interesting is the use of the STD "klingons" in the recap, an abhoration thankfully ignored thus far in SNW in favor of the TMP/TNG Klingons. Please please please keep it this way.

All in all a solid episode with above-average writing and competent acting.

Well done.

A Klingon ambassador visits Enterprise and it stirs up traumatic memories for certain crew members.

This is a strong character episode for the likes of Dr M'Benga and Nurse Chapel as we get some interesting backstory associated with both. It gives a bit more substance to the Klingon War narrative than was presented by Discovery and shows the Federation having a liberal attitude towards war criminals when it suits the politics of a situation.

It has more of a DS9 feel than previous SNW episodes. We saw characters like Sisko and Garak sacrificing lives to turn the tide of war. Here you see different motivations, but the themes of justice and revenge are similarly dark.

Comments have been made about how un-Klingon like the guest character is portrayed, but as much as I have always loved the Klingon stories, most of their character depictions have been quite similar. It is refreshing to see a different take on a Klingon here. Being a Bunny Colvin fan, I had a nerdgasm seeing Robert Wisdom in the makeup.

There is an interesting twist at the end and I think how Pike handles it might have a bearing on how you feel about the overall story. I hope this is followed up in further episodes. Will this arc have any bearing on Bones eventually becoming the Senior Medical Officer on Enterprise?

Babs Olusanmokun is on particularly great form and supported well by Jess Bush.

As always the visuals are excellent.