Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing well for a Saturday. I'm back to talk about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds for the last time this year. This time, I'm going to be discussing season 2 as a whole and reveal what my favourite episodes were, something that didn't work quite as well for me, and other things about the season that comes to mind. There will be spoilers, so if you're watching the show and haven't finished the season yet, please do so before you read this review. Let's get into it.
The first thing I'd like to talk about is how well balanced this season of SNW was. I mentioned this a bit yesterday in my season finale review, but one of the things that I love about this season is that the writers did a great job at balancing the heavy, dark, and action oriented episodes, and the goofy, ridiculous, fun ones. Season 1 really only had "Spock Amok" and "The Elysian Kingdom" that can be considered to be ridiculous and goofy. "The Serene Squall" was also a fun episode, but it was still intense. With this season they alternated between fun and intense. Episodes 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 were the fun and goofy episodes, and episodes 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 were the heavy and intense episodes. Which is great because I don't think we've ever had an even split like that in the nearly 57 years of Star Trek history before. Even in the early days of TOS back in the mid to late '60s. I mean, to be fair TOS itself is campy and cheesy because of when it was produced and visual aesthetics of the show makes it that way by default.
My favourite episodes this season were "Charades" and "Subspace Rhapsody". I mean aside from the fact that "Charades" was a sequel episode to season 1's "Spock Amok", the concept of turning Spock fully human and having him act like a teenager is just a fun idea. Especially because we never got to see it on TOS, or the TOS movies, even when he was a teenager in The Search for Spock. And because I enjoy musicals since I grew up with Disney movies, and movies such as The Sound of Music and Grease, I was going to love "Subspace Rhapsody" no matter what. The crossover episode, "Those Old Scientists" was good as well, but because I'm not a fan of Lower Decks, I didn't like it quite as much as other people did. It was still a fantastic episode, but it's not a favourite episode of mine.
This is normally the part where I talk about my favourite character or characters, but I can't because I love the entire crew of the Enterprise. And each character got a moment to shine this season. While Ortegas didn't get as much as they said she would, the few moments she did have were some of the more powerful moments of the show. Like learning she was a pilot during the war with the Klingons, shown in season 1 of Discovery, ferrying supplies and troops to and from the battlefields. That was nice to learn.
Uhura got so much to do this season. And we learned alot about her too. While we knew that her parents had been killed in a shuttle accident in the second episode of the series, this season we learned that she had nightmares about the accident, even though she wasn't there, and that she hadn't come to terms with it yet. Especially since the death of Hemmer last season, which is something that pops up in this season. Despite the character having been in a total of 104 episodes (78 out of 79 in TOS and 26 episodes of TAS) and nine movies (including the Zoey Saldana version in the three most recent movies), SNW has really fleshed the character out in terms of who she is, beyond just being the communications officer of the Enterprise.
Oh and the new Chief Engineer, Pelia, played by Carol Kane, was fine too. Though she didn't appear anywhere near as often as Hemmer had in season 1. I don't know why she didn't show up very much, or if the writers had intended on having her show up more, but she didn't. Which makes me suspect that she was meant to be the Guinan of SNW, just because back when TNG was on, Whoopi Goldberg showed up from time to time as Guinan, but she wasn't a series regular, and her name didn't show up with the main cast during the opening title sequence either. She just showed up for an episode here and an episode there, and that's what Pelia did in this season of SNW, though alot less since there are 16 episodes less in a season of SNW than there were in a season of TNG back in the late '80s and early '90s.
While it's hard to pick a favourite character, I can say that, without a doubt, Pike, as played by Anson Mount, is my favourite Star Trek captain, even over Picard. I know, it's weird, because TNG is my Star Trek show, and Picard has been my favourite Star Trek captain for my entire life, but Pike is a fun character, but also a deeply tragic character because of the fate that's in store for him in the future. Anson Mount's Pike is like Superman, if Superman was a Starfleet captain. I also love his relationship with Captain Marie Batel, who is now the former commanding officer of the USS Cayuga following the ship's destruction in the season finale.
What I thought didn't work quite as well was how the Spock/Christine relationship was handled. Except for them starting to make out at the end of "Charades" and a 3D chess game in the very next episode, "Lost in Translation", we didn't see their relationship at all before it basically died out in "Under the Cloak of War". For some reason the current Star Trek writers have a problem with maintaining more than one romantic relationship at a time on each show. Maybe they'll pick it back up in season 3 for a bit, but, who knows at this point. Either way it's something that these writers really need to work on, because part of the appeal of Star Trek, at least to me, are the relationships between the characters in each show, whether it's romantic or friendship or familial. Those relationships are just as important as the individual character development, and it's something I'd like Modern Star Trek to do better with in the future.
Overall though this was a fantastic season of Star Trek. What I liked most about it is that it was made by Star Trek fans for Star Trek fans. Not only are the showrunners, Henry Alonso Meyer and Akiva Goldsman, fans, but Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, and Ethan Peck are fans as well. And it shows in the writing, the acting, and small visual details as well. And, as I've mentioned a few times since this show started, these people like the comics and novels as well as elements seen in this show, from Number One's first name being Una, Uhura and Scotty being on the Enterprise while Pike was in command, and a few other things as well I'm sure, being taken from the novels and comics. Which is amazing to me since Star Trek novels and comics are more niche than Star Wars novels and comics are. If you haven't checked this show out, I highly recommend doing so. I got the first season on Blu-ray recently, so I plan on doing a full season rewatch at some point in the very near future.
Alright my friends, that's it for me for today. I'll be back soon with my next Star Wars: Dark Forces graphic novella review. So until then have a great rest of your weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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