Like probably all fans of Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, I've been eagerly looking forward to the crossover episode that was teased after the first season of SNW came out. If you're eagerly awaiting it, but haven't watched it yet (I just finished it half an hour ago), be warned there will likely be spoilers after the jump.
But to whet your appetite, I hope it isn't hyperbole to suggest this one is up there with the classic Deep Space 9 episode Trials and Tribble-ations. Read on for my thoughts:
After this crossover was announced, there was debate online on how they'd bridge the gap between Lower Decks' animated universe and SNW's live-action one, and then there were pictures of Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome as Ensigns Boimler and Mariner... but in real life! Then there were endless memes of all the awkward things both characters would probably say, from calling Captain Pike "daddy" to referencing Boimler's collection of commemorative plates depicting past Trek characters.
I sort of assumed the episode would show up one of these weeks and I'd dutifully watch it on the Thursday that it dropped. Imagine, then, my surprise when I logged into Paramount Plus for my traditional Saturday-night episode of Discovery (it's thrill-a-minute round here these days, lemme tell ya), only to discover a "bonus" episode of Strange New Worlds.
It took me all of 30 seconds to decide to just watch the damn crossover, and I'm glad I did. It's all pretty perfect from the start, when we see the Lower Decks crew getting ready for a mission to inspect an ancient portal. This section is animated, and so is the SNW title sequence - there are fewer visual gags than the Lower Decks title sequence, but they managed to fit in something fun.
From there until the final couple of scenes, it's all live action, with Boimler the first to get blasted back in time by the portal and meet the crew of the Enterprise. There's a good number of awkward interactions with most of the SNW crew that touch on ongoing plot points, like Boimler kinda messing up the burgeoning Spock-Chapel romance. Then, at the mid-point, Mariner shows up, and now the Enterprise has to deal with two time travelers.
It's all pleasingly low-stakes, but it feels like a good sidebar after Thursday's pretty serious episode, Lost in Translation, as well as some generally heavy ones throughout the season, like Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Among the Lotus Eaters, and especially Ad Astra Per Aspera. I'd also say that, in terms of comedy, TOS (you see what they did there?) is maybe a bit better balanced than last week's Charades, which was fun enough but kinda forced its characters into weird performances - specifically T'Pring's parents and their decidedly emotional displays.
I say it's a sidebar, but it all feels of a piece with everything else that's been going on this season. There's a callback to La'an's relationship with Jim Kirk in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and a more explicit one to Ad Astra Per Aspera, where it's revealed that Number One's on the Federation recruiting post in the 24th century, along with that phrase.
As an aside, I'll admit that episode didn't land with me as well as it seems to have with others: it all felt a little po-faced and Discovery-ish, and as some commentators noted, Una's successful defense doesn't actually change things because Dr Bashir almost gets kicked out of Starfleet in DS9 for being genetically enhanced too. Yet the callback here worked better for me, possibly because it gets passed off as just a character moment rather than the stand-in for LGBTQ rights that it was in the earlier episode... which was valid and important, but felt a little thin given that it was using genetic engineering as a kinda awkward stand-in. It's not often that I praise Discovery these days, but that relationship between Stamets and Culber does more, IMO, to foreground LGBTQ acceptance.
TOS also pulled out a reference to Pike's eventual fate, which was welcome because, as I recall, we haven't had much mention of it this season. Whereas that fate, and Pike's knowledge of it, were the narrative through-line underpinning the entire first season. Its treatment here gave Pike, Boimler and Mariner a chance to speak a little more frankly about his future for a moment, and formed the basis for a touching moment about spending time with your loved ones.
I do (as always) have a couple of nitpicks, neither one too serious. The first one is that Dr M'Benga didn't get much time with Boimler or Mariner, which is a shame, because pretty much everyone else does. In fact, thinking about it, it's a little disappointing that Boimler gets a scene with Carol Kane's Pelia rather than the doctor, who's been on the show longer and is a full cast member. My other nitpick is that neither Boimler nor Mariner ever mentions Kirk. You could write it off as them being careful, but given that there aren't any near misses (the way there are when Boimler almost reveals that there will be multiple Enterprises), I guess the writers didn't want to call too much attention away from their own show.
But as I say, those are minor. The episode is a good time from start to finish, and does a nice job of placing the SNW cast into the canon. They may not be as famous to us, the viewers, as the later Kirk and Co., but this episode gives a sense that important things were happening on the Enterprise before Kirk became its captain. I mentioned earlier that I'd put this alongside the previous "crews from across time meet" episode, Trials and Tribble-ations, so I'll go a step further and suggest this might belong in an all-time top 10 or 20 list. In fact, TOS has the advantage of just having its cast members interact naturally, rather than marveling at the technical wizardry of inserting 90s actors into 60s footage. Trials etc is a fun episode, though, don't get me wrong - just its circumstances don't allow the casts to fully interact, the way they do here.
We've only got three episodes left of Season 2 of SNW, so I'm happy to see it's staying strong throughout. That's particularly important now, since the ongoing strikes involving both the WGA and now SAG-AFTRA mean that we probably won't be seeing Season 3 for a while. I'm hoping for a good outcome for both unions, and for labor in the US more generally, so good showings from my favorite TV shows and movies will hopefully persuade management to negotiate in good faith. And when work begins again, as it surely must, I hope that the writers, actors and other crew who work on these shows are being paid handsomely to produce work as good as this.
No comments:
Post a Comment