Under the Cloak of War

I have never been a fan of Kurtzmann's Star Trek, but "Under the Cloak of War" is an extraordinary episode. There was nothing special about the episode. It had no VFX or any other exciting elements and not even dialogues, so to speak. In fact, it wasn't the conversation between M'Benga and Raa but the silence between the two that lit up the episode. War is known to be horrifying and inhumane. Sometimes it's easier to capture the feelings with silence rather than the mightiest words. This episode perfectly demonstrated the use of silence for communication. The episode was intensely dark and steadily paced. Good to see Star Trek pushing mature subjects. Hope to see more pragmatic content.

This episode leaves the usual fun and witty vibe of Star Trek SNW and gives us a taste of the later seasons of DS9. Think the siege of AR-15 meets Jetrel from Voyager.

The episode is told in a series of flashbacks that show us life in the Frontier war zone during the Klingon- Federation War. The standout performances go to Jess Bush as Chapel and Babs Olusanmokun as the Doctor. The Doctor is a grittier take on the CMO of the Enterprise. The more the doctor is on the screen, the more complex a character he becomes. Olusanmokun has this deep trauma under a stoic and placid exterior. He brings a kind of wisdom to the table for Pike derived from his own experiences. The complexity of the character is some of the best Star Trek has ever done.

The Enterprise has a Klingon defector, who now is an ambassador of sorts on board. But some members of the crew were on an outpost during the Klingon wwar, where he was the commanding officer on the Klingon side.

This was a *really* intense episode. At least on par with the best of DS9, and in the way Lt. Ortegas, but especially Nurse Chapel and Dr. M'Benga were presented, it was actually even more gripping. Their contempt, even hate for the Klingon was visceral. There were several moments, where I thought "Oh my goodness".

Strange New World is generally an upbeat Series, managing to provide some character depth at the same time.

But this one was very different. Not upbeat in the slightest. But it was absolutely excellent. Amongst the large number of very good episodes in Strange New World to be this episode stands out as the very best. And for people who like their Star Trek to be a bit more "real", I would rate it under the Top 3 of all Star Trek episodes.

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.

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.