A Space Adventure Hour

Directed by Jonathan Frakes and billed as a love letter to the original Star Trek series.

It ends up as a parody, the kind you might expect from Lower Decks.

Before the Next Generation. Starfleet had the technology for a Holodeck.

La'An ias tasked to test a prototype holodeck only to find herself having to solve a murder mystery because there is a glitch.

That is causing issues for the Enterprise as power is being diverted.

It was a fun episode but it really did not work for me. I have seen many Holodeck episodes in Next Generation and Voyager and there was little new here.

I don't care too much about canon or tradition that must be adhered to but I do care about entertaining sci-fi. This episode and the rest of this season seem to be written and directed by committee. The actors themselves are doing a good job and showing different aspects of their personality but the sci fi part is lacking. Decent drama almost sitcom like, something you can watch at 7pm on a Tuesday night back in the day but does not satisfy the adventure itch.

This is definitely one of my favourite episodes! Not sure what kill joy here isn't enjoying something fun and light-hearted. The acting is brilliant, the characters are engaging and this episode was just hilarious. Even while creating a throw back type episode they still manage to move the storyline forward with an exciting ending! Strange New worlds has been the only Star Trek since TNG I genuinely look forward to watching. They don't try to add excessive amounts of misery and darkness trying to appear unique or edgy. I always finish the episodes looking forward to the next. Please please don't cancel this show ahead of time. Far too many Sci-fi shows get cancelled. SNW is up there with TNG in my books.

The heady playfulness of parodying TOS with a mystery essentially investigating the cancellation of TOS is brilliant. The hazy period references, the riff on the old theremin theme with a jazzy lounge singer, the Shatner/Roddenberry analogs and '60s costumes are so funny and character names are hilarious. Using this show as a vehicle to play with TOS mythology through Pike and co is a great concept.

This is a hit-or-miss "meta" episode that also explains why Kirk's Enterprise didn't have a holodeck, which is kind of a neat thing to work into canon.

The sets and costumes for the goofy show-within-a-show are fun but Paul Wesley's Shatner impression - if that's what he was doing - fell short. And it's not that hard to mimic.

On the other hand, Anson Mount is always the star of these goofy episodes, because they give him a chance to show his considerable acting chops. He did the best job with his obsequious character from fantasy medieval episode. And this time he appears to be playing a Gene Roddenberry character? Not sure if it's accurate - are people familiar with Roddenberry's mannerisms - but it's fun and it works.

To top it all off, there's a holodeck mystery whose solution is reasonably clever. Not a bad example of SNW's goofball episodes. Works better than previous ones.