Hegemony, Part II

There's a persistent criticism in fandom about Star Trek series that depict Starfleet as too emotional, not following orders, just not very military in this quasi-military organization and I agree with that to some extent.

That certainly isn't the problem in this episode, where Our Heroes must mount a rescue mission, deal with a medical crisis, and fend off possible invasion, while thinking on their feet at a quick pace.

I loved the opening sequence where Pike is taking suggestions on creative ideas for dealing with the crisis at hand, batting away some and finally glomming onto the likely option. The other crises are also handled via quick, intelligent, creative thinking, which is only possible if the writers are creative and intelligent too.

Sure, the solutions are fake technology but they have plausibility, not just "re-route the frazzleblaster up the yin-yang" technobabble that Star Trek is infamous for.

However the need to wrap this all up in an hour (or 40 minutes to leave room for ads) means that the overall solution to the Gorn problem comes a bit out of left field and seems pretty convenient.

And the fast pace means that some "resolution" scenes that show people being rescued, patients being revived, etc must be dropped. The minute the characters devise the solution, the assumption is, the solution is implemented without the emotional catharsis of actually seeing it happen.

But overall this is what I want to see from Star Trek. This series is just so much more smartly written than other recent series on Paramount+.

After all the tension buildup in the last episode, unfortunately this has been slightly on the disappointing end.

As someone else posted here, there were too many parallel problems cramped into a single episode, leading to a rushed resolution that sounded like lazy pretense even for a Sci-Fi world like Star Trek.

And just as an example: beaming people from an alien ship using alien transporter codes? What was that? And just using transporter codes, how did they avoid beaming the already digested folk?

Of course there were some references to other Star Trek tropes, like shield modulation frequency etc., but not executed elegantly.

It's a weak start for the season, but let's see what comes next.

We pick up after a 2-year cliffhanger, and come out swinging, only to be given a weak solution to end the episode, and sadly, Strange New Worlds is continuing down the path of disregarding what came before them, in TOS Prime Canon Trek. Further placing this show in an alternative parallel timeline to the original.

The A Team of Spock, Pike, and Una all work on trying to solve the issue with the infected Captain Batel and save the Enterprise from being overwhelmed by the Gone attack force. The B team, composed of La'an, Ortegas, and Dr. M'Benga. Are trying to self-rescue after being captured by the Gorn's portable lunch-mobile. Good thing Ortegas can fly anything on the spot.

Star Trek Strange New Words had plenty of other popular culture enemies. All started with "The Thing" and fall apart with this conclusion.

The enemies lack complexity while they are showed as the ultimate enemy. Sort of like the hive of Borgs that have very obvious flaw, that by logic you can defeat. The episode had a lot of nonsense wording and "make it work" moments that even La Forge would start having a PTSD.

Very entertaining. Filled with action and high stakes drama. Plus, a cool new take on classic original series characters.

It was an excellent follow up to a very compelling cliffhanger from the previous season. For me personally, the best episodes are ones that go all out with dynamic space battles and power struggles with other beings.

Good job.