Star Trek Strange New Worlds: Hegemony, Part 2

"How do we punch back and show them we're not prey?"

Fast moving and exciting. I should have enjoyed it more.

The Gorn as villains have turned into an outright ripoff of Alien and Aliens, two movies I absolutely loved. Last season we had the chest-bursting and the skittering hatchlings. Here, we got the crawling on walls and ceilings, the egg pods, the piles of slime. There was even a huge Ripley moment with Ortegas face to face with a Gorn snarling and dripping saliva.

I'll admit that the light thing was cool. Uhura discovered the unique stellar activity that would trigger a Gorn hibernation, and after a ton of technobabble that was too dense for me, Pike turned the Enterprise into an artificial star and put them to sleep... um, put them to sleep. Where have I heard that before? Oh, yes. It was the Borg, wasn't it? And "Weakness is something we dare not show" was also familiar. We're talking about the Borg and the Romulans, my two favorite Star Trek villains here.

It took me awhile to admit that I wasn't a fan of last season's finale, and I wasn't actually looking forward to part two. And part two made me realize how much I wanted the Gorn to go away. They have worn out their welcome with me, and I really am hoping they just go hibernate for the rest of this series' run.

That said, the four Enterprise officers waking up in the Gorn ship was the best part of the episode. I was actually thinking "There are guns in the poop pile!" when La'an said, "Weapons in the crap pile." A bit more tasteful, so to speak. La'an's childhood trauma with the Gorn again came in handy, and Sam Kirk was a lot of fun.

But I hated what happened to Ortegas.

It did feel like someone ought to die to give the episode some heft. If I had to choose, I would have chosen Captain Batel. It's not that I don't like Melanie Scrofano's Batel, because I do. But they were signaling hard that it was going to be Erica Ortegas, and she's a favorite of mine and not a legacy character, and I actually got very upset — especially when she was so severely injured that they had to lift her into the cockpit and she was bleeding out on the instrument panel after flying the Gorn ship with half of her hand missing. They even gave her a final line. She's the pilot. She flies the ship, dammit.

I'm glad they pulled back from that. As I already said, Ortegas is not a legacy character and somewhere, a young actor that resembles George Takei must be waiting in the wings. But not yet, please.

I have one more complaint. Captain Pike didn't seem like himself, even in a life and death situation. Or maybe I just wasn't feeling Anson Mount's acting choices this time. Was it the body language, the expressions? Was it Pike kneeling and starting to recite the Lord's Prayer?

Meanwhile in Sick Bay, Christine and Spock effectively brainstormed a treatment for Batel by using Una's superblood. Against regs, but rules are meant to be broken. Spock's suggestion to treat the Gorn babies instead of Batel ("Feed me, Seymour! Feed me now!") actually worked. Of course it did. With M'Benga on the Gorn ship, Spock was a lot of scientific help but clearly, paging Dr. McCoy.

Spock took time from their critical treatment of Marie Batel to apologize to Christine for acting like a jerk. She told him not to wait for her while she is away studying with Roger Korby for the next three months. It feels like my favorite SNW romance is over.

Martin Quinn (Scotty) joined the cast, and he's an excellent successor to James Doohan, and very welcome. Even better, Carol Kane's Pelia hasn't left yet because she is showing him how to be a miracle worker. And to write everything down. More Scotty and Pelia, please.

It was recently announced that Strange New Worlds will end with the fifth season, giving us an actual "five year mission" and two more seasons after this one. Couldn't ask for more than that. Plus, an end date gives the writers the opportunity to think ahead and craft storylines that will fit into the time that's left.

And of course, fans are theorizing that SNW won't actually end but will instead segue into a reboot of the original series with James Kirk as the new captain. I wonder if Paul Wesley is cool with that long of a commitment?

Bits:

— There were new pictures in the credit sequence, plus the addition of Martin Quinn to the cast.

— I like that Admiral April (Adrian Holmes) is hanging around in the story. Usually, admirals on Star Trek are jerks. He's not a jerk.

— While still on the bridge, Pike was watching a feed of Batel's biobed on his chair. That made sense.

— I have been taking the visuals for granted but the Enterprise crashing through the Gorn ship, the "massive digestive chamber" with the Parnassus Beta people in pods, all impressive. I also liked the ending with Pike and Batel fading into the binary stars.

— Speaking of the Parnassus Beta survivors, we didn't see them rescued or in the emergency infirmary. Which was staffed by whom? That felt odd after seeing Christine and Spock treating Batel in the nearly empty Sick Bay.

— The suits Christine and Spock were wearing in Sick Bay looked a lot like the shower curtain get ups from the original series episode, "The Naked Time."

— Pike said, "Okay, Dad. You win" before he started to pray. Has Pike's father been mentioned before? I'm spacing it out.

— In this season's hair report, Uhura's short do looked like a wig. And Una's hair looked different somehow, but better.

Quotes:

Pelia: "The Gorn! They're here! We're doomed, Scotty! We're all gonna die!"
Scotty: "It's working! It's working! Tell the bridge to patch it to the shields. (Pelia makes a face) What? Is it too late?"
Pike: (intercom) "Bridge to science lab. What's the status down there? We're about to enter Gorn space."
Scotty: (to Pelia) "Oh, you minx."
Pelia: "It's up and running, Captain. We can patch it into the shields now."
Pike: "Excellent. Pike out."
Scotty: "That wasn't funny."
Pelia: "It was fuuunnnn."

Ortegas: "Totally got this, not impossible at all."
La'an: "And it's true you can fly anything, right?"
Ortegas: "Don't be rude. Of course I can."

Scotty: "It's one in a thousand we'd get it done right or don't blow ourselves up along the way, and look." (Display says "Enterprise destroyed")
Pike: "Yeah, I don't know. I like those odds. We'll just turn it off before we blow up."
Was this Pike again aware of the fact that he's going to be alive up until a certain accident in the future?

Sam: "This is amazing. I'd love to take this apart, figure out how it works."
Ortegas: "Yeah. Good idea. Let's make a whole day of it. Get snacks, hang out."

Ortegas: "I did good, didn't I."
M'Benga: "Stop. You're going to make it."
Ortegas: "They'll have to try harder than that. I'm Erica Ortegas. I fly the ship."

There are enjoyable moments throughout, don't get me wrong. But could this please be the last of the Gorn? Two out of four slime-tastic body pods,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

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