After several weeks of indulging in nostalgia with look backs at Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation, this time out we get some ALL NEW Trek.
The return of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
There is more than a little bit of burden on SNW as it begins it's 4th season. After two strong seasons, the 3rd season was not as solid and left a lot to be desired.
“Valles Marineris”, the season 4 premiere, gives some strong indication that the good ship Enterprise is back on track.
- Captain Pike rides a horse!
- Pelia drops another Doctor Who reference!!
- There's cool space shit!! (An interstellar squall!!)
- There's wibbly wobbly time travel!!!
- Number One, Ortegas, and La’an fight a goddam dinosaur!!!
- La’an punches a raptor!!!!
- We get a new building block in the Star Trek mythos!!!
- The Enterprise crew faces a terrible moral and ethical dliemna!!
- A whole planet blows up real good!!!
- I must repeat: Pike rides a horse and La’an punches a raptor!
People, are you not frickin' entertained?!?!
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| Kick Ass Action Girls of Star Trek |
The mission statement for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was to get back to the "planet of the week" structure of the original series. SNW sort of strayed from that plan in season 3 but “Valles Marineris” marks a return to form for season 4.
Even if one of the strange new worlds turns out to be Earth, 65 millions years in the past.
And the other strange new world is Mars.
And instead of an asteroid belt, there is a third M-class planet between Mars and Jupiter, Dol’Drm.
And Dol’Drm and Mars are at war.
The Martians steal anti-matter from the Enterprise to use against the Dol’Drm homeworld.
Well, that some serious temporal prime directive fuckery right there. The Enterprise needs to stop Mars from using future tech to destroy the Dol’Drm.
Until Pike realizes something very crucial and orders the Enterprise to stand down.
The asteroid belt came from somewhere.
And thus we get the moral and ethical quandry facing Pike and the crew.
Yeah, this episode is filled with cool sci-fi stuff and great action sequences. (I cannot stress this enough: La’an stops a raptor by punching it!)
But it's the gordian time travel knot at the center of the narrative and the resulting hard choices thrust upon Pike and his crew is what makes for the best Star Trek drama.
This kind of though provoking philosophical problem is where Star Trek shines.
Next week, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns with episode 2 of season 4, "The Griffin Incident".
I have NO idea what we're in for.
We'll find out together in next week's Star Trekking.
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