Tuesday TV Touchbase - Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Before we kick off this week's Touchbase, I want to acknowledge a couple of people who fall under the heading of "the wrong people keep dying".

Malcolm Jamal-Warner died yesterday at age 54. He drowned on vacation in Costa Rico.  Malcolm became famous for playing Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show. He managed to avoid most of the pitfalls of child actors transitioning to adulthood.  He had lead roles in the Showtime post-apocalyptic action drama television Jeremiah and medical drama The Resident in addition to recurring and guest roles on dozens of other shows including 4 episodes of Community.  

Tom Troupe died on Sunday at age 97. Mostly a stage actor, he had a number of roles in film and television including the Star Trek episode "Arena".  (No, he was NOT the Gorn.)  

Speaking of Star Trek, let's get on with this week's Touchbase.  

Two years?!

TWO YEARS?!?!

TWO DAMN YEARS?!?!?!

That's how long we had to wait between seasons 2 and 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. 

Between the writer's strike, the actor's strike and whatever fuckery slows down the production of shows made for streaming, that's an insane amount of time to wait for a season ending cliffhanger to be resolved.

So when the gang here at the Fortress of Ineptitude (myself, Andrea, Rosie and her emotional support humans Dean and Jan) sat down to watch the season 3 premier of Star Trek: Strange New World, we first watched the season 2 finale to remind ourselves what the hell happened because it has been two years.

Two years?!

TWO YEARS?!?!

YES, It's been TWO DAMN YEARS!!! 

The Gorn have attacked a Federation Starship and a planetary colony.  The Enterprise arrives to save the day but their options are limited.

The Gorn have a big honking jammer thing on the planet that stops communications and transporters and anything else that would help the plot along.  

Pike assembles an away team and Ortegas drives a shuttle down to the planet pretending to be a piece of crashing space debris. It's a reckless crazy stunt that Ortegas enjoys way too much. 

(We like Erika Ortegas a lot and we hope she doesn't die.) 

The shuttle lands and Pike finds his current girlfriend and fellow space captain Batel and other survivors of the Gorn assault including one Montgomery Scott. 

Spock goes all Buck Rogers to propel himself through space from the Enterprise to the smashed up saucer section of the destroyed starship where Spock's ex-girlfriend Christine Chapel is the only survivor. The plan is to outfit the saucer section with rockets and send it down to the planet below as an even BIGGER piece of crashing space debris to blow up the Gorn's big honking jammer thingy. 

Various plans are working and everything's going great so it looks like we can wrap this episode up.

Except...

• Members of the Enterprise crew (Oh no! Not Ortegas) and the colonists are beamed up by the Gorn
• Batel is implanted with Gorn eggs which are going to hatch,eat her and then everyone else on the Enterprise 
• Pissed off Gorn are attacking the Enterprise 
• Pike has been ordered to withdraw from the fight.,

What to do? What to do? 

On to "HegemonyPart 2"!

OK, that cliffhanger was totally bogus. Like, did we really think for a second that Pike was going to hightail it back to the Federation without trying to rescue his crew and the colonists?

"It's a shame. I really liked Ortegas. But the Admiral said leave so we gotta go."

No, I don't think so! 

Plans are planned. Schemes are schemed. Things are... thinged.

Chapel and Spock team up to save Batel from the Gorn eggs. It's like an episode of House where every solution they come up with will only make the situation worse (100% chance of death) until House Spock has an epiphany for an idea that has an 86% chance of death.

14% chance it'll work? Gotta like those odds. 

On the Gorn ship,  La’an, Ortegas, Kirk (not THAT one but brother Sam) and M’Benga are on the loose, looking to hack Gorn systems (how does their shit work and how can we stop it) and steal a ship to get back to the Enterprise. Ortegas figures she can fly a Gorn ship.

(We like Erika Ortegas a lot and we hope she doesn't die.) 

Meanwhile, Pelia and Scotty are sciencing a doodad to make the Enterpise invisible to the Gorn which will work unless someone looks out a window.

And Una and Uhura are teaming up to figure out what makes the Gorn do what they do and it's tied to solar activity which either makes the Gorn go crazy and swarm or hibernate. 

In short, what is going on here is what Star Trek does best: as Keith DeCandido puts it, "science-ing the shit out of the situation."

The Gorn have them outnumbered and outgunned. Power will not win the day. Intelligence, imagination and a little guile will. 

The Gorn ship crew escapes with Ortegas piloting a Gorn vessel but she's not doing well at all. She's been shot by a Gorn and is fighting off death itself to pilot this thing.

(Oh no you don't, Star Trek! We like Erika Ortegas a lot and she better not die. Oh my God! She's gonna die, isn't she? She mutters "I am Erika Ortegas and I fly the ship" and collapses on her console. Oh fuck! She's dead!) 

<Interlude while Dave-El gathers himself>

(Ortegas is not dead. She makes it back to Enterprise where she's recovering in sick bay.)

As for the Gorn...

Science shit makes the Enterprise glow like the solar effect that makes the Gorn hibernate and they go away.

Pike cannot be too celebratory. "I can't help but think we made this someone else's problem."

Which brings us to episode 2 of season 3.

(We wait for two years then they burn through 2 episodes at one time.)

"Wedding Bell Blues" gives us a time jump of three months.

The trauma of "Hegemony Part 2" is still an ongoing problem. Batel survived her Gorn egg encounter but is still wobbly on her feet. (She can only dance to Wham's "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" for just one verse).  And Ortegas has some unresolved anger issues via a vie the Gorn. 

(We like Erika Ortegas a lot and we hope she isn't infected with Gorn eggs.) 

Chapel is back from her three-month fellowship with Dr. Roger Korby (who is now her new boyfriend) just in time to get married to Spock.

Wait! Who is going to do what with who now?  

Someone is making a muckity muck of reality.

Enter special guest star Rhys Darby (yep, Stede Bonnet his own damn self from Our Flag Means Death). In the time honored tradition of Trelane in TOS or Q in Next Generation, Darby's character has powers like unto a god and a total lack of self control on how to use them. 

In a nod to "The Squire of Gothos", we get an intervention from another all powerful parental being... voiced by John DeLancie? Sweet!

1. Was Darby's character Trelane? His IMDb page says it was but this appears to contradict "The Squire of Gothos". But then everything we know about the Gorn from "Arena" is contradicted by ST:SNW so who knows. 
2. Was Darby the son of Q? Could be. And since Q is not linear, it is possible that son is the one that was/will be introduced in Star Trek: Voyager.  
3. Or was Darby playing just some guy with powers like unto a god, we shared a laugh or two and learned something about life, love and shit like that? The "it's just a TV show and we really should relax" answer? 

The choice, it seems, is yours. 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is off to a good start with it's 3rd season, showing once again the show is not afraid to challenge our expectations of what Star Trek can be.

That is that for this week's Touchbase.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.