A fun episode that took a surprise turn into something much deeper.
While on a mission to observe an unusual interstellar squall, the Enterprise was sucked into – was it a wormhole? I'm not quite clear on that – and answered a Mayday buoy of a starship-in-distress.
Enterprise was held in tractor beam tendrils and boarded by three aliens, led by the tall and somewhat snotty Commander Cassell (played beautifully and snottily by Saffron Burrows). Cassell was ready to take Enterprise as battle spoils, but Pike noticed her preoccupation with war and cleverly tempted her with Federation weapons, long enough to open a dialogue.
Big surprise. They discover that Enterprise is 65 million years in the past, in the Sol system that somehow has three M-Class planets. Cassell's tractor beam was dragging Enterprise to their beautiful green and brown home planet, Mars.
 |
| Interesting. Martians look like extra tall Vulcans with even bigger ears |
The Martians are totally preoccupied with war because the Dol'drms, an insectoid species from the fifth planet, are trying to completely destroy them. The Dol'drms have already killed two million Martians during an attack that left a huge hole on Mars, the Valles Marineris. When Pike and Spock try to explain the value of the Federation and alliances, the importance of communication, the use of the carrot and the stick, Cassell is only interested in sticks. Cassell knows that the Dol'drms can't be bargained with, can't be reasoned with, you get the drift.
What's so terribly sad about it all is that we know that Mars will become a red wasteland, no matter what they do. And for me, that was the really interesting part of this story.
Pike was trying hard to observe the Prime Directive because the Martians were pre-warp, plus they were trying to preserve Earth's future, no small thing. But when Cassell stole the antimatter fuel cell and used it to attack and destroy the fifth planet, sacrificing herself and her own ship in the process, Pike let her do it. That was huge.
There's a lot of time travel in Star Trek. It's always been a given that fooling around with the past could completely screw up the future (see "The City on the Edge of Forever" and more recently, the temporal emergency in "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow"). But Pike essentially realized at that moment that what was happening was meant to be, a hunch later confirmed by Spock.
The Enterprise was always supposed to be there so that Cassell could destroy the fifth planet. Why this change? I don't think it's a continuity error on the part of the writers; it's too big a deal. There must be a reason.
I particularly liked the reminder that they're using translators, where Cassell revealed that because of their existential war, Cassell could not marry but still gave her condolences to Pike because he was a recent widower. Cassell was a wonderful character. She was a bit like the terrific Romulan commander in the original series. It was nice to know that Martian DNA is present in many species throughout the galaxy, that some Martians must have escaped the destruction of their planet.
This episode's B story beautifully complemented the A story.
Una, La'an and Ortegas went down to Earth to find the iridium they needed to jumpstart Enterprise's engines, and discovered many, many dinosaurs and a huge reminder of the classic Ray Bradbury short story, "A Sound of Thunder," a.k.a. "The Butterfly Effect." Have we ever had an all female away team before? The shuttlecraft was named Curie. Even the dinosaur was a "lassie."
Anyway, the callbacks to Jurassic Park with the T-Rex and the raptor were just so much fun. And I loved that La'an punched the raptor, because of course she did. Her enhanced whatevers are clearly kicking in. And that could be good or bad. If this were Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I'd expect La'an to be a supervillain by the end of the season.
Bits:
— Stardate 2491.5. The episode began at the end of a mission on Tulaxar, with Pike, La'an and M'Benga having fun on horseback, possibly another reminder of Anson Mount's previous wild west series, Hell on Wheels.
— It was obvious that Pike was hogging missions because he was dealing with the loss of Marie Batel and thoughts about his rapidly approaching non-future. Who could blame him for trying to jam in as many experiences as he could? But when they were talking about beaming up, all I could think of was, don't you dare leave the horses alone in the middle of nowhere!
— Admiral Bob April was back again, this time offering Pike a promotion. Pike passed it up (echoes of Captain/Admiral Kirk) and suggested the well-deserving Una.
— In shipboard news, Uhura has a new Vulcan mentee who was even snottier than Cassell. La'an and Spock are still friends with benefits, and into costumes. And Scotty and Ortegas were at each other's throats for some reason: wrench jockeys versus bloody pilots.
— It was confirmed that Pelia was one of the Doctor's companions, officially linking the two biggest science fiction television franchises. I don't like the possibility that both might be ending permanently.
— At the end, there was a shot of Pike's reflection in the conference room table. They've been showing future burned Pike in his reflections, but not this time. I wonder why? Does it have anything to do with this change in time travel repercussions?
— The book Pike and April were discussing, A Princess of Mars, has personal meaning to me. I read it when I was eleven and became totally obsessed with Edgar Rice Burroughs and later, Robert A. Heinlein. That vision of Mars kickstarted my deep love of science fiction.
— In this season's hair report, half the cast got a new do. Uhura's was my favorite.
Quotes:
Pelia: "Using impulse engines would be like trying to free ourselves from a boat using a pair of flippers. Small flippers! Flippers that could be lost at any time!"
Ortegas: (re: Una) "Did it eat her?"
La'an: "It's not chewing."
Ortegas: "You just punched it."
La'an: "Yeah. Well, I didn't have time to shoot it in the mouth, did I?"
Chapel: (to La'an) "You punched a dinosaur?"
M'Benga: "Well, I'm sure it had it coming."
La'an: "Is it possible that somehow all I've been through has activated those recessive genes?"
M'Benga: "Are you going to try and take over the galaxy now?"
La'an: "I don't know."
Ortegas: "So we only exist because of what we did?"
Scotty: "I think we might exist because of what we didn't do."
April: "Everything happened as it was meant to. That much is clear."
Pike: "So don't overthink it."
Yeah, the Enterprise saved the universe. No big.
Although I loved the first two seasons of Strange New Worlds, I wasn't that happy with season three. It felt like it was nearly all horror or comedy and very little science fiction. Well, I am officially encouraged. I genuinely loved this episode. It was an excellent standalone with an effective mix of adventure, humor, and tragedy.
Four out of four flippers that could be lost at any time,
Billie
---
Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.
Sorry I'm a bit late posting this. New episode comes out today.
ReplyDelete