Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x04 "Memento Mori" TV Show Review

 Hey everyone! I'm back with this week's SNW episode review. Today we're talking about season 1, episode 4, "Memento Mori", which was more intense than the first three episodes, but not overbearingly so as many episodes of Discovery's first season were. It's still a reminder that this is Modern Trek, not Classic Trek, so anything can happen. Let's get into the review.

This episode actually reminded me of a more intense version of Classic Trek episodes like "Balance of Terror" where the Enterprise is attacked and damaged by an enemy they don't see and the captain, be it Kirk or Picard or Archer, has to outmaneuver them in order to prevent the ship from being destroyed. Which is interesting.

Even though tensions were high in this episode, and there was a bit of gore, when M'Benga had to sow Una up due to her injuries because most of the ship's systems were offline, it wasn't a violent episode, nor was it overly dark like it would've been on Discovery or Picard. Which is actually kinda nice and confirms it for me even more that they're really trying to keep SNW consistent with TOS. I'm really glad that about that because I'm tired of how overly dark Discovery and Picard can get. 

This was definitely a La'an episode, though we did get some great stuff with Hemmer and Uhura down in Engineering as they tried to make repairs to the ship. I actually liked that some of La'an's backstory was shown, but through a mind meld with Spock. It made the story flow better and didn't interrupt the main story the way Tarka's backstory did in one of the later episodes of Discovery season 4. Christina Chong did a wonderful job in this episode.

I loved the stuff we got between Hemmer and Uhura. As I've said in previous SNW reviews, Star Trek's biggest strength is the characters and their relationships with each other. Sure, the writing wasn't always great on TNG or on TOS, but we believed in the shows because we believed the relationships between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and Picard, Riker, Data, La Forge, Crusher, Worf, Troi, Yar, and Wesley. So I enjoyed the smaller, still poignant moments between Hemmer and Uhura in this episode as much as I enjoyed the bigger stuff going on with the Gorn attacking the Enterprise. This is the fourth week in a row that I've said this, but when are we getting an Ortegas episode? Like c'mon writers, give us an Ortegas episode. Melissa Navia is amazing in the role and she needs more to do. Plus I'd love to see Ortegas and La'an hang out together.  

What I found most interesting was the submarine warfare that was heavily prevalent in both TOS and TNG due to the limited movements of the ships. It's all well and fine to have fancy space battle choreography in modern Sci-Fi shows like Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, and The Orville (season 3 is going to be insane!), but sometimes you just need a simple one on one game of cat and mouse between starships. And that's what this episode, and episode 2, gave us. 

I think that La'an taking over as first officer while Una is in Sickbay indicates that she's the ship's second officer like Scotty, Data, Tuvok, Dax (and later Worf) and Trip were on the classic shows. Tuvok was the only Chief of Security to hold the position of second officer, but given that he was second officer, it's not unprecedented for the Chief of Security to hold that position.

I'm also glad that the writers didn't allow the fact that La'an is a descendent of Khan define the character. While I suspect that's why she's had so much to do in these first four episodes, within the story it isn't defining her. Which I figured it would given how well known Khan is to the Star Trek fandom, and even to people outside of the fandom. So far that's not the case, and I'm very glad to see her stand on her own as a character. I'm also glad that the writers are letting her stand on her own instead of simply just tying her to Khan.

Overall this was another solid episode of SNW. I admit I was a little bit worried when they released the away team scene and it looked as dark and intense as alot of first season Discovery episodes, and it looked like we were actually going to see the Gorn in this episode and it was going to be a scary episode. But, thankfully, like I said they held themselves to keep the show's tone consistent rather than going off on tangents. I just wish Ortegas got more to do and had an episode for herself.

Alrighty that is going to be it for me for this week. I'll be back next week for more reviews including the season premiere of season 3 of The Orville. So until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.