Much like the previous comedy episode 'Spock Amok', I struggled to click with this one. It wasn't particularly bad with some massive TOS vibes, and I always loved holodeck-gone-wrong style episodes, but the problem was that once again it just felt lifeless. The jokes raised a small chuckle at most, with the majority missing the mark entirely.
This time around something I noticed was the lack of musical accompaniment to help lift the comedy. Without it there to help, things feel remarkably dead. Music was there certainly, but so completely subdued.
For the positives, I thought that Dr. M'Benga lead the episode extremely well. I was also pleased to see Hemmer back. Uhura hammed it up brilliantly. Pike/Anson Mount was kind of delightful as the coward, pitching his performance just right. Wizard Spock looked fantastic. And Ortegas seemed in her element, jousting verbally with Pike. It's just a shame that so few of these elements ended up working well together.
The episode was saved for me by the ending, where it managed to hit me hard. The performances here were top notch. At first I was a little surprised at how easily M'Benga willingly gave up his daughter, but then I realised that she is literally at death's door and has no time left (the show hasn't made this quite as clear as it could have). He knew that holding on to her only means her death.
A weaker episode, but not a terrible one. It feels a little too early in the run to do something like this when the characters haven't been fully established.
Well, at least it wasn't a musical. But it was just about as weak
I'm not really into SNW, but not quite sure why...and this episode definitely didn't help
What did I just watch?!?
I liked how they addressed the subplot of M'Benga's daughter versus miraculously finding a cure for her and it was clearly a chance for the actors to show some different, sillier sides to themselves. Hard disagree with the low-rated comments -- this episode clearly embodied the spirit of TOS.
Honestly this might be my favourite episode so far, although I have pretty much been feeling that way for every new episode. What could have been a fairly clichéd and generic "alt universe/role reversal" story was elevated by the beautifully emotional conclusion to an ongoing plot thread. I was expecting to laugh going in, but I certainly did not think I would end the episode in tears.
I miss this type of episodes in Star Trek, I'm glad to see it brought back. Not only that, this was a good way to end the arc of the doctor and his daughter, neatly tied to the book too.
I hope this is not the end of the his daughter's story and they'll revisit her in the next seasons. There are questions to be answered and possibilities to explore regarding the nebula. Was it something like the Prophets in DS9? Time is irrelevant? But they're stuck in one place?
Who knows. But I for one would like to know more about it.
Thank you. I love this episode.
this episode was str8 garbage :thumbsdown: just end the season or get new writers
Not my cup of tea, but this episode was straight from tos.
Well, it was bound to happen, but here we are, back to the ol' formula of focusing on the least interesting characters, and writing the stupidest stories.
Did Trek and Orville finally switch?
What a great episode! I really loved it. Classic Trek with a lovely story. I hope SNW will continue bringing such great episodes (each episode so far was really good).
Come On! What The F***.
This sort of episode you would find in season 4 or 5 after the show has established itself. This is so disappointing in every respect.
I did find it funny how the dog continued to lick the chest of whoever that was, and that I highly doubt was written into the script.
Thank the Star Trek Tribbles there's only two episodes left, I nearly bailed on this episode it was so bad and I promised myself I would watch the whole season before deciding whether to continue or not. Just utterly lame.
Another great episode of SNW with a classic Star Trek twist. The actors really handled the story perfectly.
It looked like a bad high school play.
It is very rare for me not to enjoy anything Star Trek but what the hell were the writers thinking ? This is utterly terrible and very cringeworthy. I really struggled to finish this episode.
I already had a headache before starting this episode but it quickly turned into a fight for my sanity.
The lame humor, the fantasy, the attempts at being quirky, the song, the language, Pike's continuous cuckolding, Spuck's continuous unSpocking, shaved head (wo)man, ...
The only good thing was Christina Chong's cleavage.
(Honorable mention to Fauxhura's)
* silly fantasy music going tinkle winkle biddle bee blum *
MODERATION EDIT: Be respectful.
I think this is my favorite episode thus far. It feels like a meta-celebration of acting in general, and seeing the breadth of the actors’ range is just excellent.
This one really felt like an original series episode. Looked like it would have been a lot of fun for the cast and crew as well. :)
I really liked this episode. It was sweet. I appreciated the afro-futurism elements throughout. Very well done. Beautiful wardrobe as well.
what a garbage episode, nothing more than a silly fantasy just to prop up the least interesting characters in the show. and of course, Captain Pike is portrayed as a buffoon because, WHITE MAN
Definitely the weakest of the episodes so far.
Absolutely incredible. The people who rated it low likely have little to no understanding of Eastern philosophies or the Boltzmann brain theory. A beautifully crafted conclusion to something we will all face, our ultimate completion.
The end had me crying.
Literally the worst episode yet, you could skip this one out and not miss anything of significance
A ten-episode season and they waste 10% of it on THIS crap? One of the supposed selling points of these short seasons in the early days of the phenomenon was that it would allow the writers to make every second of storytelling count while avoiding filler. Well, that didn't last long, and now this show has joined right in. Very disappointing...
Can't help be of two minds over this...can anyone anyone else say, "Blue Lagoon?"
On the one hand it's better done than two or three I can think of from TOS...and snips off the moral issues with keeping a girl in a box long term, but, on the other, she IS his daughter. I'd be like, "NO FUCKING WAY am I agreeing to release my prepubescent daughter into the care of an alien intelligence who knows nothing of our species' psycho-sexual needs than what he/she can sus out from the child's imagination. She belongs with her own kind, until she grows up!"
(Couldn't stop crying until it was over -- some happiness, but mostly sad)
Why is it legal for the doctor to put his daughter in a somewhat coma and take her all over the galaxy hoping to find a cure. That wouldn’t be fare to everyone else that needs help also. I’m sure he’s going to put the whole crew and the federation at risk to find a cure. Don’t get me wrong id do the same thing I’m just saying its very hypocritical of the holy than thou crew of the Enterprise which by the way likes to go to other places and tell the people of that place what to do. Sounds oddly familiar to a certain country today
Of course the minute i question the moral of what the doctor is doing they find a way to stop it lol. That whole thing could have been a scam to kidnap children for all we know. Oh well moving on.
This episode was embarrassing to everyone involved. I like the series, but, wow, this one was bad.
OK...I've changed my mind. We need more of Spock making out! Hemmer is the only reason to watch.
This was a nice episode. The people on here are just too picky.
This show is so unserious I love it
Wow! What hot garbage was this episode.
A silly episode that managed to deliver an emotional ending. Glad it managed to pull it back as I was losing it for a while there.
Also Dark!Uhura and Spock made me feel things :eyes:
Along with some gender bending fun with Ortegas that just read as queer romance with Una. I'm not adverse to any of these things.
It was really touching. I was moved, a splendid story, a great lesson. This is what made me fall in love with star trek. The ability to create fantasy stories without leaving the main story. Here is some genius in directing this series!.
I recommend it to all true star trek fans. Melissa Navia's performance pissed me off. Celia rose Gooding beautiful as always!
The ending had me emotional. Really solid.
This episode could have been another great episode following an amazing previous one. It was all great up until the part where the father lets the daughter go lightheartedly, and his daughter leaves her father in a blink of an eye. ♂
It smells like Discovery.
Horrible episode. These are the kinds of episodes I hate. If in fact I rewatch the series this episode will be skipped :thumbsdown_tone4::thumbsdown_tone4::thumbsdown_tone4:
I liked what they were trying to do - surreal, alternate reality type episodes are certainly an established Trek trope - but this probably would have worked better a few seasons in after the characters have been properly established; instead, this ended up being more surface level than it could have been. That being said, I'm still very much enjoying and appreciating the "classic Trek" style of Strange New Worlds, much as I can understand the desire to try something new and different in the Trek universe with Discovery and Picard.
That idiotic episode brought me to tears in the end. Why on earth would you build this surreal comedic plot around THAT dramatic emotional theme. Second bad episode.
The cast clearly had the time of their life's playing this.
Well, points for originality but I cannot really say I liked this episode.
Acting and costume was on point but in true Star Trek fashion the first like 2/3rds was not interesting. But that last 1/3rd they knocked it out the park. I’ll never understand it vastly different from Discovery or even Lower Decks episodes. And again I’m happy they tied it into a continued storyline. Much appreciate it.
It was so ridiculous, that it was actually fun.
That was so crap. I did not watch all of it. If this was an earlier episode I would have stopped watching completely.
This is no for me. I had fast forward to the end.
Well, honestly, this was the least enjoyable episode so far - I mean, the fairy-tale setting, all the characters who didn't know what was going on were acting pretty much outside of their usual (which was funny in parts, especially spineless Pike), but the whole M'Benga and his sick daughter subplot hasn't really gripped me from the beginning. And this conclusion... feels like a copout. Maybe the writers didn't want to go down the clichéd route of finding a cure at the last second, maybe they suddenly realized they didn't want to deal with the idea of dealing with a parent who keeps his kid essentially locked up in solitary confinement (even if it was done in order to prolong her life) etc. But maybe they should have thought this through first...
So far, I think this one is the weakest of the season. I'm really glad that they summed up the Rukiya storyline however. Now maybe we can actually develop M'Benga as a character. As the one character who has received disproportionately more screen time than everyone else other than the Captain, he is more of less a blank slate and is only defined by the storyline with his daughter - a story I was never crazy about to begin with. Maybe we can some definition and growth going forward.
Now, all that being said, I always like to add something positive to a negative, which is simply this: Give Anson Mount the Emmy Award right frickin' now for his role as the fop chancellor! The man is a goddamned national treasure!
Nope. This is the type of episode you do seasons into a show. After only 7 episodes? Come on. That's hardly any time to become vested in the characters, or the actors playing them. Perhaps the people rating this highly are just in general fans of the Star Trek universe, but for me, this is my first Star Trek series and this episode made me want to turn it off for good. It was not the right time or place to insert a bottle episode like this.
I've loved every episode so far but this was very 'filler' which is normally not so obvious for an adventure of the week type show.
Was the equivalent of a musical episode on the pointless and boring scale.
Also, Rebecca Romijn was in, maybe, 2 minutes of this episode but even then you really see how weak of an actress she is. I notice it every episode, everyone else is fine so she really stands out as someone who is visibly 'acting'.
What was this episode? I mean, there have been dream Star Trek episodes in the past, but this was silly.
Best episode so far. Closest to original Star Trek it has been. Was it good, no.
Story does not make sense. All the characters are still unlikable. Only the blind guy is growing on me
Shout by PaulVIP 2BlockedParent2022-06-23T19:21:02Z
Had to switch it off after 10 minutes. Imagine putting this up against Orville's latest episode.