Hey everyone, how's it going? Happy Friday! So, I've got a big review for you today. Because it's the season finale, there will be spoilers because I can't talk about any of it without them. So, if you have not watched the season 2 finale of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, "Hegemony", then please don't read this review until you have seen it, because it was big guys. So let's get into it.
Every Star Trek fan has that cliffhanger season finale where they feel the importance of it. For Trekkies who watched TOS either when it aired in the '60s or in reruns in the '70s and '80s, "The Best of Both Worlds Part I" is the episode that confirmed to them that TNG was as much Star Trek as TOS had been. For others, such as myself, "Equinox Part I" was important season finale for me. I saw "Best of Both Worlds Part I" when it aired, but I didn't understand the significance of it because I was so young when it originally aired. "Hegemony" has that same sort of weight to it. It's that, "Oh crap, is this really happening?" thing that Star Trek hasn't had since Enterprise ended in 2005 because TV shows tend not to have season ending cliffhangers anymore. At least not one as big as what Star Trek was doing in the '90s and early 2000s. So I appreciate it for that.
The Gorn are absolutely terrifying. If you've only seen them in TOS or as CGI lizards in Enterprise, then you definitely have never seen the Gorn before. Because, despite them being a guy in a suit, not CGI, these ain't your grandparents's Gorn, or your parents's Gorn. They look fantastic in this episode. Which is why they're terrifying. Even more so than they did in season 1. So I thought that was really cool.
The next thing I wanted to touch upon is the fact that they introduced Scotty, or Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Montgomery Scott, played by Martin Quinn. I love Scotty. He is one of my favourite TOS characters, so I was very happy to have him introduced into the SNW world. In fact this episode is yet another example that the writers, in this case Henry Alonso Meyer, read the novels and comics. In the 1986 TOS novel, Enterprise: The First Adventure, the 1989 TOS novel, Vulcan's Glory, and the 1993 TOS comic, Star Trek Annual #4, all show Scotty having joined the crew of the Enterprise while Pike was still in command. None of them are canon obviously, but if the people behind SNW are using elements from that material, then they clearly have an affinity for the Star Trek comics and novels. Which is pretty rare outside of Star Wars. Also, interesting to note that Martin Quinn is the first Scottish actor to play Scotty. The original actor, James Doohan, was Canadian and used a Scottish accent, Simon Pegg, who played Scotty in Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), and Star Trek Beyond (2016), is British, and Matthew Wolf, who voiced Scotty in the SNW season 1 finale, "A Quality of Mercy", is also British. So that was cool.
The cliffhanger ending was insane. While Pike, Batel, Spock, and Chapel made it back to the Enterprise, the remaining colonists, survivors from the Cayuga, and La'an, Sam Kirk, Ortegas, and M'Benga were all captured by the Gorn, beamed up before the Enterprise could get a lock on them. That moment when Uhura informed Pike that Starfleet ordered them to leave the Parnassus System as the ship got hammered by Gorn phasers and torpedoes, and just the look on Pike's face as he tried to make his decision, with the crew on the Bridge waiting for his orders very much reminded me of Riker ordering Worf to fire their deflector dish weapon at the Borg Cube at the end of "The Best of Both Worlds Part I". I was on the edge of my chair as the screen faded to black and the words "To Be Continued..." appeared on screen. It was fantastic. I haven't felt this excited to see what happens next on a Star Trek show, after a cliffhanger ending, since the Enterprise season 3 episode, "Azati Prime" aired back in 2004. And the last time I felt this way about a show as it aired was when "Identity Part I" aired during season 2 of The Orville. And that was back in 2019. So kudos to Henry Alonso Meyer for writing a fantastic season finale, and to all of the writers and actors for creating characters we actually care about that aren't just older versions of characters we've known for over thirty years.
"Under the Cloak of War" was more intense than "Hegemony" is, simply because "Under the Cloak of War" was dealing with darker themes than "Hegemony" does. This episode is more action oriented than dark. It felt more like one of the more action oriented episodes of Deep Space Nine or Voyager, which was great. One of the things I'm going to mention in my full season review is how well this show balanced between the goofy, ridiculous episodes, and the more serious, dark ones. I mean last week we just had the crew singing in a musical, and two weeks ago, Mariner and Boimler from Lower Decks came for a visit and caused chaos for an episode, and THEN that same week we had "Under the Cloak of War". This is what Star Trek did from TOS to Enterprise, alternating from light, fun, goofy adventure episodes and dark, serious, thought provoking ones. This is how Star Trek should be and I am very glad that the people working to bring us SNW agree with that sentiment because I had so much fun with this season.
Overall, this was an amazing season finale. It was action packed, it was interesting, and it was alot of fun. It's been great to be a Star Trek fan this year. Crossovers, reunions, storytelling by people who actually care about Star Trek, and love Star Trek as much as the fans do, all of it was awesome.
I'll be back tomorrow for my full season 2 review. Again, there will be spoilers because I have so much I want to talk about. So join me for that. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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