What Is Starfleet?

Strange New Worlds employs another gimmick. It is the documentary episode but at times it seems more like found footage.

Beto Ortegas is the director and angry at Starfleet. He does not see Starfleet as a benevolent peaceful organisation. Beto is also angry at them for taking his sister Erica away.

Captain Pike is on a top secret mission in a war between the the Lutani and the Kasar, where the Lutani ha suffered massive casualties.

There is an ethical dilemma as Pike learns that the Lutani are using a lifeform called the Jikaru as a weapon, against its will.

The documentary aspect is too gimmicky although Beto scepticism is worth exploring. The new Star Trek series is not shy about exploring the dark side of Starfleet.

The attempts to communicate with the Jikaru and its aftermath redeemed the episode somewhat.

I'll say this about this episode: it's clever and unusual to do a faux-documentary about Starfleet (can't recall that this has ever been done before) and critiquing the militaristic aspect of Starfleet does address a longstanding controversy: are Starfleet officers explorers or warriors?

Trouble is, there isn't much to this critique. If you want to explore, you will run into surly aliens who will shoot at you. Case closed.

The ending of this episode slammed right into a different and more interesting critique, right under the writers' nose: Starfleet is a bunch of moralizing prigs who get themselves into trouble by steamrolling over alien cultures who don't live up to their lofty standards.

The original series wasn't guilty of this too much but it's been in evidence from TNG onwards. Remember all the obviously-wrong aliens that Picard lectured and then flew away? Remember how the Federation used the Bajoran wormhole to colonize what turned out to be Dominion space and then rather than just sensibly retreat, decided to fight about it?

No wonder Starfleet officers have to be warriors with that kind of high-handed attitude. They can get away with it because they have a big alliance and a lot of firepower. That doesn't make them right or smart.

What's going to happen the next time the Federation want something from the Lutani? They're going to get a cold shoulder, that's for sure. Maybe they'll become allies with the Klingons.

I was waiting for some kind of rationale why Starfleet was even getting involved in somebody else's war. I figured they didn't want the combatants to ally with the Klingons or they had a moon made of dilithium or something.

A little more detail about the warring sides, and how desperate each might be, would be warranted. If the Lutani were battling for survival, that puts a different spin on their moral ambiguity and makes Starfleet look like a bunch of jerks.

Someday maybe Star Trek writers will develop more self-awareness in their writing. It's pretty unsophisticated and surface-level right now.

Leave it to the writers of Strange New Worlds to come up with a pretty decent premise for an episode but then proceed to screw it all up. The episode has an Encounter At Farpoint feel to it, but unfortunately the story kept getting interrupted with this documentary style episode. Ortega's brother is such a pointless character, which made the episode kind of pointless. You never really feel for the creature as the story is constantly interrupted. Just 3 episodes left in season 3. What else can the writers screw up?

I'm not sure why there is often a compulsion to create documentary-style episodes on fiction shows, but they always fall flat. This is no different. The questions asked by the interviewer are so juvenile and offensive that it's hard to tell if it's a consequence of bad writing, or intentional to display his ignorance. The questions the crew put up with wouldn't have been tolerated in any reality. The amount of stuff that was "declassified" that would not have been was silly. I would've rated it higher if the premise had been a documentary that Starfleet refused to release.

The moral ambiguity that was the main theme with the episode was this episode's redeeming quality.

This episode had the makings of a really solid Strange New Worlds entry. The core plot-freeing an intelligent life form from servitude to another race-was classic Trek, full of moral weight and the kind of ethical dilemma that has always made the franchise shine.

Unfortunately, the writers chose to present the story in a "documentary" style, with a cameraperson following the crew around and conducting interviews. For me, this pulled me out of the narrative rather than drawing me in. The constant reminder of the camera's presence made it feel less like a natural Trek adventure and more like a gimmick.

It's a shame, because the underlying story was a good one, and told in a more traditional format, it could have ranked among the better episodes of the season. Instead, the execution turned what could have been a great episode into just a fair one.