Welcome back to Star Trekking, my regular blog berth for my Star Trek fandom.
This week brings us to the 8th episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' 4th season.
"Orders of Magnitude" gives us another step in the development of James T. Kirk into the leader he is destined to become.
For a guy who is not assigned to the Enterprise yet, boy, he does show up a lot. But seriously, this is a good outing for a our future captain.
This episode gives us that standard Star Trek staple, the "Bad Admiral".
The trope of the "Bad Admiral" got a lot of play on Star Trek: The Next Generation."Too Short a Season"
"Ensign Ro"
"The Drumhead"
"The Pegasus"
Just to name a few. And the trope continued into the movies with Star Trek: Insurrection.
The "Bad Admiral" is usually a high ranking person in Starfleet with an absolute 100% certainty of the rightness of their cause even if that cause stands in defiance of the ideals of Starfleet and the Federation.
Sometimes the "Bad Admiral" is just plain nuts.
Which brings us to this week's episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Capt. Pike, Commander Chin Riley along with Uhura, Chapel and Vulcan cadet Asha are on a side quest off the Enterprise.
(I'm not clear why the Captain AND the first officer had to BOTH be off the ship but hey, the original series did it all the freakin' time!)
This team is checking into an SOS on a distant and mostly barren world. Only to find themselves in a trap laid by some rogue Andorian pirates engaged in some decidedly illegal arms sales.
But that's the B plot.
Meanwhile, back on the Enterprise, an admiral has arrived that has the crew squeeing with fangoodber glee. When he was Captain of the starship Constitution, Admiral Simon Reeger was a hero of the Klingon war, fighting off an assault by 4 Klingon warships all by his damn self.
Reeger has arrived to commandeer the Enterprise for an urgent mission. He's tracking a cloaked ship that staged an attack on a Federation outpost that killed 5 million people. The ion trail will soon dissipate so:
- Reeger is taking command of the Enterprise NOW!
- The Enterprise is leaving to track the enemy vessel NOW!
- And something other 3rd thing right NOW!
Reeger assigns the visiting Jim Kirk as his first officer. Jim's dad, George, was Reeger's first officer on the Constitution and the admiral seems to take some perverse pleasure by shitting all over the senior Kirk's reputation.
There is a lot about Reeger that sets me on edge from jump. His drastic swings between gregarious familiarity and ball busting brusqueness, his frequent goddam passive aggressive manipulation of the bridge crew.
Jim Kirk knows something is not right with this bastard. And those doubts are crystalized with Reeger makes a very drastic decision.
The cloaked ship has entered a planet's atmosphere and can no longer be tracked. To ensure the enemy vessel does not leave the planet. Reeger invokes General Order 24.
General Order 24 is the destruction of an entire planet.
Jim has to play beat the clock and convince the crew that Reeger is fucking nuts and needs to be removed from command. And NOT blow up a damn planet.
Which is quite frankly harder than it should be because Reeger is so frickin' obvious koo-koo for cocoa puffs.
What follows is Kirk using all his skills, courage and more than a little bit of guile to stop Reeger's myopic quest to stop an alien invader even at the cost of innocent lives.
Meanwhile, back with the the B-plot, the Andorian pirates seem to have the upper hand. They have injured Asha, the Vulcan cadet; she will die if they can't get her to the medical help she needs soon. Asha's mentor, Uhura, is feeling particularly guilty for bringing Asha on the away mission and despite Pike's orders not to do so, Uhura agrees to help the Andorians in their schemes.
Don't worry: Uhura has a plan! And she and the plan kick all sorts of ass!
For her efforts, Uhura is awarded a promotion to lieutenant junior-grade after being an ensign for little more than 2 years.
To quote Wrenn Simms, wife of Keith R.A. DeCandido, "SUCK IT, HARRY KIM!"
(Harry Kim spent seven years on Star Trek: Voyager stuck at the rank of Ensign.)
"Orders of Magnitude" is a great spotlight for legacy characters Uhura and Kirk.
The mystery of the cloaked invader is not resolved within the episode but the evidence suggeests we're dealing with an advance foray by the Romulans before their next incursion in the original series "Balance of Terror".
There was another question in my mind that was not resolved. Reeger was accompanied by a female assistant who was always lurking in the background, never saying anything.
There she is lurking behind Kirk and Ortegas.
I kept waiting for some shoe to drop that she was up to something. Like she was some kind of mind controlling shape shifter alien who was making Reeger act crazy or some shit like that.
But no. She was just... there. Always there. Always watching.
Keith R.A. DeCandido didn't mention her in his blog post. Nor did anyone bring her up anywhere else I looked.
So my questions about her were just mine, I suppose.
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As part of the 60th Anniversay celebration of Star Trek, The Price Is Right presented a Star Trek themed episode with Drew Carey and the TPIR gang clad in Trekkian regalia, Trek themed games and prizes and an appearance by Rebecca Romijin and Ethan Peck.
It was kind of dumb fun with Ethan and Rebecca having a blast introducing the showcase prizes. Drew and the announcer engaged in a lot of groan worthy Trek based puns.
I sucked at guessing prices because man, shit costs too much now! One woman won a pair of sunglasses with a retail price of $1,900! Nearly TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS for sunglasses?!?!
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On the subject of StarTrek's 60th, click here for a very well written post by Kevin Church about his discovery of and passion for Star Trek.
That is that for this week's Star Trekking.
Until next week, remember to live long and prosper, y'all!
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Later today, we take a brief break with Doctor Who!
And tomorrow: BLOG POST#5000!
What will that be all about? Your guess is as good as mine.
My writing staff is working on it now.
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| "OH SHIT! THAT'S DUE TOMORROW!?!?!" |
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