Strange New Worlds 2x08 was one of the best Star Trek episodes ever

cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/792370

I think Under the Cloak of War has broken into my top 10 episodes of all time.

Seeing Chapel and M’Benga’s struggle with having the Klingon responsible for one of the most traumatic moments in their life aboard the ship was tough to watch.

The performances from Jess Bush and Babs Olusanmokun were absolutely perfect in conveying their deep hatred for man they are being told by Starfleet is now an ally.

I wasn’t a fan of M’Benga but after today he, along with Chapel are possibly my favourite characters on the show. I still can’t got on board with Ortegas though, sorry.

Hyperreality,

What I find fascinating about this episode, is that it illustrates how cultural misunderstanding is a huge driver for continued tensions between the Empire and Federation.

The Federation and humans especially try to be pacifists and explorers and are ashamed of their ability to be fearsome warriors. Ashamed of the barbarity they are capable of. The Klingons misunderstand this, and think the federation are either weak or duplicitous. That the federation is pretending to be peace loving so they can stab the Empire in the back, or wants to avoid war because it is weak.

Meanwhile, humans think diplomacy is always the answer. When dealing with Klingons, being honest about humanity and the federation's capacity towards violence would go a long way to easing tensions. If the doctor was known as the butcher of J'Gal, this would have helped the federation seem more like a worthy opponent and therefore potential ally. Instead he allows a Klingon to take the credit, and the federation ends up being represented by the worst kind of Klingon, a coward who ran from battle. What the doctor did was arguably very honourable in Klingon eyes. He killed a coward, who killed children, but ran when faced with a real warrior.

It's also politically relevant today, where pacifism is seen as a weakness, while others underestimate how strength and the threat of violence often prevents wars or the fact that sometimes extreme violence ends wars and potentially prevents further suffering.

Corgana,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

Damn, excellent observations. No notes just wanted to say that!

sanzky,

I disagree a lot. I think the idea was very good and it has good chunks, but overall it was even below average for SNW due to not so good writing. I felt the same about the first episode of the season. I feel it hid to much information just to be able to give a twist in the end, at the expense of the first part of the episode, which I think it dragged too much.

I feel the writers are trying very hard to show SNW can have a very wide range of themes but I dont think they are delivering that well when it comes to war.

Kichae,

I feel it hid to much information just to be able to give a twist in the end

I don't think it was much of a twist. Between the doctor's actions in The Broken Circle (using the protocol 12 combat enhancer to fight his way through a ship of Klingons with Nurse Chapel, as recapped at the start of the show), the Special Ops Andorian trying to recruit him to the mission (and the doctor declaring that his days of doing such things were behind him), the re-introduction of the P12 green vial, and the repeated aggressive physical contact between M'Benga and Dah'Ruk, it was pretty well spelled out for us before the end of the episode.

sanzky,

maybe I just did not fully understood everything until it was over. I found it confusing that the reason to call him butcher was not the killing of civilians but he killing his own men.

In the end he wants to keep the fact that he didn’t kill his own men because that seems to be the reason for starfleet to really considered him a defector? I honestly see that as a weak argument. particularly several years after he has been successfully working as an ambassador.

I feel that if his lies would have been clear earlier we could have had more intense scenes between them and his character could have been developed a bit better

Haus,
Haus avatar

The last 3 episodes have been freaking superb. A lot of what has appealed to me could be called fanservice, but I can live with that. For the token hottie, Christine's character probably rivals Jadzia's in terms of development. The Spock/Chapel romcom was something I didn't know I needed. The Lower Decks crossover was sublime. And this PTSD episode is one of several examples of taking a character we met in S1, may not have been initially very invested in, and deepening the connection and interest in them.

jaredwhite,
jaredwhite avatar

This episode knocked it out of the park. In a season that's been a wee bit hit and miss IMHO (compared to S1), seeing such depth and pathos in a story which could have been handled in a heavy-handed way otherwise, well it's very satisfying.

UESPA_Sputnik,
@UESPA_Sputnik@lemmy.world avatar

In a season that’s been a wee bit hit and miss IMHO (compared to S1)

Yeah, the first half was very uneven. But I’ve enjoyed every episode since episode 5, so I guess they found their stride again.

JWBananas,
JWBananas avatar

M'Benga: I can live with it

InverseParallax, (edited )

I don’t know about best.

But the highest praise I could give it is that it reminded me of In the Pale Moonlight.

Also, Bunny was awesome.

triktrek,

Also, Bunny was awesome.

Who is Bunny?

InverseParallax,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_"Bunny"_Colvin

triktrek,

Ah thanks. I haven’t watched the Wire, so I didn’t get the reference.

darth_helmet,

I don’t understand, what’s hard to like about ortegas? She’s exactly what I’d expect a hotshot pilot to be like.

InverseParallax,

She’s a human being, starfleet has very few of those.

michaelgemar,

@darth_helmet @47_alpha_tango I like Ortegas a lot, but I think it is kinda silly that a huge starship would need (or could use) a hotshot pilot. The ship is like an aircraft carrier, which generally don't make fancy moves.

shirro, (edited )

The astronauts in the ISS predominantly conduct science research and maintain the station. The only maneuvering it does is orienting itself for thermal management, orbit raising and occasional collision avoidance. A ship like Dragon 2 is highly automated. Yet a lot of astronauts are still pilots and many from the military.

Nobody would be surprised to travel on a commercial aircraft flown by an ex-military pilot.

Star Trek space combat doesn’t seem very realistic but I can understand the value of having an experienced pilot who can function under pressure. It makes a hell of a lot more sense than handing the helm of the flagship full of families over to an unqualified teenage Wesley Crusher. Picard was fortunate there aren’t more mountains in space or that could have turned out like Aeroflot 593.

htrayl,

I mean, it’s a ship with shields, inertial dampeners, and a super fusion power source. It can maneuver and is fast.

darth_helmet,

This is something that’s been a problem with space combat in media forever. It’s the size of an aircraft carrier, but combat is more exciting if we pretend that everything in space maneuvers like a fighter jet.

Pretty much only The Expanse gets that stuff right.

osarusan,
osarusan avatar

Season 1 Ortegas was hard for me to like. She was far too cocky for a Starfleet officer, talking back and too informally to superior officers. She felt like she didn't belong in Star Trek, or at least in that kind of Starfleet command structure.

Season 2 Ortegas has backed off from that a bit and is now far more enjoyable. She's got spunk, but she doesn't come off as insubordinate or rude.

circuitfarmer,
@circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

100% agree. She’s got a confidence that is often annoying, but I think that’s the point. She thinks she’s hot shit (and maybe she is – she’s at least a competent pilot).

I see her as a kind of version of (early) Tom Paris.

dpkonofa,

She’s the Maverick of the Enterprise. Makes sense to me.

StillPaisleyCat,
@StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website avatar

She’s a more seasoned pilot by far than early Tom Paris.

But she’s exactly what I expect and know experienced combat pilots to be like. Some are sober and subdued like Sulu or Detmer, but the in your face types are common and tolerated.

Lumidaub,

Notreadingthatnotreadingthatnotreadingthat because I haven’t seen it yet (woe is me). I’m just here to express my amusement about how lately every week we seem to get “the best Star Trek ever” ;D

CeruleanRuin,
@CeruleanRuin@lemmy.world avatar

It is a rather impressive run. I’m curious how long it can go before the typical “fan backlash” phase takes place.

triktrek,

We are well into/towards the end of season 2 of SNW, and fans have generally been loving it. I think it’s fair to say that SNW has been and will likely be successful for a while. SNW certainly has one of the best first seasons (along with Lower Decks).

VindictiveJudge,

The backlash is usually first for Trek, then when a new show comes out the last one is suddenly an underappreciated gem. Not sure what that means for SNW.

CeruleanRuin,
@CeruleanRuin@lemmy.world avatar

SNW is an anomaly in that it started as a spinoff to a show that was already contentious within fandom. Unlike previous iterations that began while another show was still on the air, SNW benefited from comparison to the already existing show. Fans were hungry for something different.

osarusan,
osarusan avatar

It helped that Discovery was such garbage, and the Pike/Enterprise plotline showed us what could have been instead of what was. SNW was the show we wanted when all we had was Discovery. And now it's great to see that they seem to have recovered that lost magic.

CeruleanRuin,
@CeruleanRuin@lemmy.world avatar

Credit is definitely owed to Discovery for giving us this iteration of Pike, Una, and Spock. Flawed and uneven as that show is, they did hit this one out of the park.

osarusan,
osarusan avatar

Very true. Whatever we can say about Discovery, they did give this one to us.

numbers,

I think a person who thinks the new episode is “the best ever” is much more motivated to make a post than someone who thinks it was fine. The result: each episode has someone making a “best episode ever” post.

Mynameisnotdoug,

I’m just here to express my amusement about how lately every week we seem to get “the best Star Trek ever” ;D

What a great problem to have!

Lumidaub,

Not a problem at all, but it does sound curious on the surface, don’t you think? ;)

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