Star Trek Strange New Worlds: Terrarium

"Just a couple of girls having a slumber party. We could braid each other's hair. If you had any. Or if I had any."

It was time to resolve Erica Ortegas' trauma with the Gorn. What better way than to strand her alone with one?

On a solo mission in the stripped down shuttlecraft Archimedes gathering data that involved way too much Treknobabble, a wormhole popped out of nowhere and disappeared, taking Erica and her shuttle with it. And there she was, alone on a hideous asteroid, burned up rations, damaged sensors. Except while on a walk in the glowing ugly gray rockscape looking for food, she learned she wasn't alone. "Neighbors?"

I like Erica a lot. She's brash and enthusiastic and courageous and a lot of fun. Since she's also not a legacy character, I've been worried that we were going to lose her in a particularly painful way, and at the start of the episode, I thought this was it. And then I thought maybe we were getting a Dennis Quaid/Lou Gossett situation like Enemy Mine. But no. It was something else entirely.

The only original series episode featuring the Gorn is "Arena," which is actually a popular episode. In "Arena" (my review is here), Enterprise arrives at the Cestus III colony to find it was destroyed by a departing alien ship. Kirk pursues and attacks the alien ship and as a battle rages, a god-like alien stops the fighting and transports Kirk himself and the captain of the alien ship to a deserted asteroid to fight it out. Whoever wins, and their ship, will be set free; whoever loses, and their ship, will be destroyed "in the interest of peace." The god-like alien tells Kirk and the other captain, a Gorn, that there will be supplies on the asteroid that will allow the creation of weapons. It also gives them a simple communication device so they can talk to each other.

Kirk manages to create a small mortar out of the chemicals, diamonds and coal on the surface and he incapacitates the Gorn. When he must kill him, though, Kirk shows mercy, saying that it's possible the Gorn thought they were defending their area of space from incursion. The god-like alien appears, identifying itself as a Metron, and lets both ships go free. The Metron, looking like an androgynous angel in silver, says that showing mercy meant that humans have promise and they might get in contact with us again in a few thousand years.

The Metron in "Arena"

The Metron in "Terrarium"

So clearly, this is a callback to that episode. The Metron was experimenting with Erica and her Gorn counterpart. Both were female, both were pilots. (The Gorn's hoodie even made her look Madonna-like.) The supplies were more sophisticated and the communicator more primitive, but Erica indeed used them to rescue them both.

And then La'an arrived and immediately failed the Metron's test by killing the Gorn. Yes, context is everything, and La'an had every reason to shoot first and ask questions afterward. The Metron had given the humans an unfair test, considering what the Gorn had done to them.

In "Terrarium," as the team were beaming out, the Metron appeared in front of a skyline (I loved that it resembled Vasquez Rocks, where "Arena" was shot). The Metron confessed to Erica that curiosity made them put human and Gorn together with a need to survive just to see what would happen. What La'an did screwed it up, so Erica won't remember the Metron, who closed with "Perhaps someday we may need to reset your perception of the Gorn as well." Which sort of reconciles the SNW version of the Gorn with the original series. Okay.

I did really like everything they did with Erica and the Gorn pilot getting on together – definitely the best part of the episode. The "pit monster sushi." The chess board and the bone game. The rigged universal translator with "Agree!" "Disagree!" responses. I think it was obvious that the Gorn knew her own people would destroy her, and she was helping Erica out of the goodness of her heart. Meaning the Gorn are... capable of goodness?

Meanwhile back on Enterprise, everyone wanted to find Erica alive, but most of them thought it was much more likely that she was dead. Uhura was much too hopeful, right up until she lied to Captain Pike in order to mount a bizarre rescue mission when they probably shouldn't have. I mean, wedging the Enterprise into the opening of a black hole, hmm, that just might be dangerous. And of course, there are always colonists waiting for much needed vaccines, a much overused and tiresome plot device creating an artificial deadline.

I did like that Pike knew Uhura was fudging the numbers and chose to proceed anyway, but hey. Didn't Erica do something similar awhile back and get into serious trouble? How come Uhura got away with it?

Bits:

— Stardate 2198.7, Erica's log. Uncharted space with gravimetric volatility.

— So the Metrons actually created a wormhole to abduct Erica and the Gorn? That's pretty powerful stuff there.

— I did a fan squeal when they said they were going to rendezvous with the USS Constellation commanded by Captain Decker. The Constellation and Decker were featured in my absolute favorite episode of original Star Trek, "The Doomsday Machine." We didn't get to see them, but a mention was cool.

— Uhura prayed in Swahili. I read once that people always pray, swear and count in their native language.

— Erica pretended to eat a game piece to please the Gorn. She pocketed it and later placed it next to her photo of young Beto in her quarters.

Quotes, mostly Erica's:

Erica: "Don't worry. I'm gonna get you so much data, it'll be coming out your ears." (Spock is not amused) "It's an expression. You know that, right?"

Erica: "I just got kicked out of a wormhole. I don't know where I am, but I'm going down. Whoever hears this, come find me at these coordinates. And bring snacks."

Erica: "So how's this sound? I wrap up your leg, you let me sleep here. And don't eat me. Deal?"

Una: "Only Erica would be crazy enough to set a planet on fire to get our attention."

Erica: "She kept me alive. She saved me. She was my friend. La'an is my friend, too. I don't know what to do with that."

A good episode for Erica Ortegas, and an interesting way to reconcile SNW and the original series. What do you think? Three out of four not-quite-edible game pieces?

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

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