Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x07 "The Serene Squall" TV Show Review

 Hey everyone! How's everybody doing on this Friday morning? I'm doing well. It's Friday, which means I'm here to talk about another episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. This week it's episode 7, called, "The Serene Squall". There's going to be spoilers so if you haven't watched the episode yet, please do so before reading this review. Otherwise let's get right into it.

This episode could've been very Discovery-ish with the pirates and the ship being captured, but it wasn't. It still felt like classic Star Trek somehow. As if the writers pulled back on this one even though they wanted to make it as violent as possible. Especially given their propensity for doing so on Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard. Which I greatly appreciated because it made for another fun episode.

I am really enjoying the chemistry between Jess Bush and Ethan Peck as Chapel and Spock. Not that Majel Barrett and Leonard Nimoy didn't have chemistry back in the TOS days, but the writers were doing everything they could to keep Chapel in the background so that the studio executives, and Lucille Ball, didn't discover that Majel was the same actress who they fired after they disliked her as Number One in the original pilot, "The Cage", that she came off as one note particularly when she was on screen with Nimoy in their scenes as Chapel and Spock. Here though, there are no such restrictions and so their relationship is pretty fun to watch. It actually feels like a genuine friendship, unlike most of the relationships on Discovery and Picard.

I am also really enjoying T'Pring being a fully fleshed out character. When she appeared in "Amok Time" she felt lifeless because we didn't know what she did for a living and all we knew about her was her connection to Spock and her desire to terminate said connection in favour of Stonn. Which doesn't make for a compelling character. But I'm glad we're getting more of her now. It's satisfying to watch characters created 55 years ago by D.C. Fontana actually become fully realized characters instead of throwaway guest characters. 

Speaking of Stonn, and this whole section is where the spoilers lay, he shows up as one of T'Pring's office assistants. Which is actually pretty hilarious given that we don't know how T'Pring and Stonn met in TOS. It's also pretty interesting getting to see so much of these characters we saw back in the '60s. At first you don't even know who he is, but then T'Pring says, "thank you Stonn" and if you're a Trekkie, you know who Stonn is. You know who T'Pring is, so it's exciting to get that interaction, even if it's just a small one.

By the way my favourite scene in this entire episode is at the very beginning when Spock and T'Pring are on FaceTime/Skype/Google Hangouts/Facebook Video Chat and the look on Spock's face when T'Pring mentions she had been reading several books on human sexuality and sexual customs in hopes of helping Spock explore his human side a bit more. And adjacent to that when he talks to Chapel and tells her of the situation. I laughed pretty hard, just because it's a little ridiculous, but actually pretty realistic when you're with someone and they want to understand an aspect of your life, but then goes overboard with it and you love that they're trying. And then you're a little uncomfortable and need advice from a friend on how to handle it. I haven't personally had that before, but I've seen it on other TV shows like That '70s Show, The Big Bang Theory, and Love, Victor.

The biggest spoiler comes at the very end when it's revealed who the prisoner that Captain Angel wanted to exchange Spock for. Sybok, Spock's half-brother. Yes, THAT Sybok, from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, the one Spock never told Kirk and McCoy about. It adds another layer to Spock's friendship with Chapel because he told her about him. Good thing she's not in Star Trek V, which is most likely why the writers put that into the episode.

So, to the wider plot, since I gushed and geeked out over the Vulcans long enough. The Enterprise being captured so easily by pirates is such a goofy little trope at this point, because it's happened at least once in EVERY single classic Star Trek series from TOS in the '60s all the way to Enterprise in the 2000s. And I love it. I also love the twist where Pike and the crew insight mutiny amongst the pirates, allowing them to take control of the pirate ship just long enough to get back to the Enterprise. And you don't actually see the start of the mutiny either, which is fine. All you see is Pike and the crew in control of the pirate ship, the Serene Squall. I love how they were able to pull it off as non-violently as possible too. 

The coolest twist is how "Dr. Aspen" was really the pirate captain, Angel. Who is a far better villain than Osyraa was in season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery. Mainly because Osyraa was just a petty dictator with delusions of godhood, while Angel is a pirate for the fun of it. Like they looked like they were having fun in every scene they were in. Which is awesome. And when we find out they were actually after Sybok, it was like, "Oh, THAT's interesting". So I'm wondering if we'll go back to that plot element in a later episode.

I do have one minor criticism this episode though. Una and Spock mentioned that Pike needed Starfleet Command's permission to enter non-Federation space. Why? Isn't the whole idea of exploration is to leave Federation space and go out into the unknown? My thought was that Una and Spock meant it as, they needed permission for the Enterprise to enter an independent power's territory, which would line up with what we've seen in every other Star Trek series and movie over the years. But the way they said it and the way it sounded is they meant it as, they needed permission to leave Federation space altogether, which is odd to me. It doesn't even come close to breaking the episode or making me angry about the sanctity of Star Trek Canon when it comes to prequel series like Strange New Worlds, I just found it to be a curiousity in this amazing series.

Overall this was another fantastic episode. It was fun, interesting and opened up so many more potential storytelling opportunities for Star Trek in the future. Particularly on Strange New Worlds. And I hope they take it because it was awesome.

And that my friends is going to be it for me for this week. I was going to say that I hope that next week won't be as hectic when it comes to the blog, but it totally will because the finale of Obi-Wan Kenobi drops next week and then the following week the season finale of Superman & Lois airs and the season premiere of Only Murders in the Building drops. Then maybe I can get around to catching up on season 2 of The Hardy Boys. So until then have a wonderful afternoon and an amazing weekend and I will talk to you all soon. Take care.