Lost in Translation

The creators of this series did a fine job the first season of repairing the damage of Discovery and the boring first season of Picard. It was fun, it had solid plots and a good cast. This season is a big letdown so far and this episode is a disaster of inane conversations and bad acting.

The actor playing Uhura is one of the biggest problems. Unlike Nichelle Nichols, who exuded a noble maturity and dignified presence, this actor disappoints with a little girl's voice and lots and lots of hand wringing. Her crying, her breakdowns, her internal battles are more soap opera than what we're used to from ST actors. But she is just a small part of the problems with this talky episode.

You'd think that the people behind Strange New Worlds would have learned from the far superior ST tribute show, Seth MacFarlane's The Orville, that is far more in the spirit of Gene Rodenberry's vision than anything we find in this episode. But no. For some head-scratching reason, the writers just don't get it.

It seems Goldsman and Kurtzman are more interested in a quick buck than delivering on the promise of quality and imagination that Gene Roddenberry is famous for. The magic is no longer there.

SNW now seems to suffer the same fate as DIS:

There is no longer a command structure on the ship, ensigns decide whether a mining facility should be destroyed and feelings are the focus and not scientific facts.

Captain Pike seems like a nice uncle and not like the captain of a spaceship. The death of two crew members apparently leaves him completely cold. Instead of sending security to catch the saboteur, the captain goes on the hunt.

Uhura watches as the saboteur blows a hole in Enterprise instead of simply using the phaser to stun him.

As a science officer, Spock is not consulted to investigate whether aliens actually live in the nebula.

And based on a gut feeling, a station is casually destroyed, without perhaps discussing the matter with Starfleet Command first.

And no one, absolutely no one, has to fear any consequences and there are no investigations into these incidents.

And Pelia as chief engineer is a joke. And a bad one. Any episode where she has more than 10s of screentime is pure torture.

This episode exemplifies the complete mixed bag of season 2. Bottom line there's way too much exploration of feelings and character history versus...exploration of Strange New Worlds. I think we all want character development but the writers need to ease up! And no whispering of lines please. This season also suffers from tonal problems. The episodes were all over the map of light, serious, whimsical, musical etc Lighter episodes and whimsy are great, but they lose impact when there's too much. They have to be earned out of the serious stories. This is a fantastic, likable cast but the writers are beginning to undermine them. The reason this show exists is because fans responded to a fantastic, likable performance by Anson Mount as Captain Pike. The writers have lost sight of that too as his character has been sidelined much of the season and the writing for him one dimensional. Please return to exploration, dial back the emotion, all the back stories, and rapid character development, and remember this an adventure show with a great cast of characters that we want to get to know authentically, not through overwrought artificial writing.

Uhura experiences a series of dangerous hallucinations.

I like very much how SNW focuses different characters and this one has more good material for Uhura, who gets some solid development alongside the opportunity to lead the story. Additionally, it has great positive messages about coping with bereavement, the value of communicating and a plot that is resolved with intelligence as opposed to violence. It also features the Kirk brothers. To be fair, all the ingredients are there for a Trek style nerdgasm.

Celia Rose Gooding gives a strong performance and is supported well by Paul Wesley and Dan Jeannotte.

Visually it is excellent, with a number of great creepy atmospheric sequences and sci-fi action moments.

This rather minor episode puts Uhura at center stage: not only is she the only crew member to be aware of an alien species making first contact but ultimately she is the only one who can save the day.

It's one of those cheapie segments, so important in keeping a season under budget, with very little action. Instead, we have several fan-pleasing (in a nearly condescending/pandering fashion) peeks at the iconic figures of Star Trek history interacting, notably Uhura with Kirk assisting rather than commanding, as well as Spock meeting Kirk for apparently the first time. For me, such cuteness doesn't register because new actors are playing the roles. For Roddenberry's legacy, the main theme expressed here is putting the welfare of an alien culture, even one we know nothing about, ahead of greed (in this case, Starfleet's "gas station" for deuterium mining) is rather obvious.