Spock: "On that we are in agreement."
Apologies, because I'm late again. Because oh boy, I did not want to write about this episode. I'm very tired of Strange New Worlds doing horror.
That said, at least it was done well. If you like this sort of thing.
It was a dark and stormy night in space. Kirk, Spock and La'an, a sort of incipient love triangle, are in the neighborhood and wind up on The Griffin, a blood soaked, haunted ship where all three hallucinate very unsettling things that illustrate their deepest fears. But are they hallucinations? Are ghosts just negatively charged ions? Is there a logical explanation for what is happening to them?
La'an was hallucinating The Griffin's security chief Rose Harper, emphasizing La'an's fear of failure at the job she loves as well as her fear of her genetic make-up, her "Wrath of Khan"-ness, which is slowly taking her over. It's clear that La'an turning villain by the end of the season is in the cards, which is an unpleasant prospect for those of us who like her. Especially since she is not a legacy character and will probably not survive an evil turn.
James Kirk, who is as legacy a character as there can possibly be, has just become a father and hallucinates a baby crying. Which of course symbolizes his personal dilemma: to continue life in Starfleet as an action hero, or be an active father to his son David. The sadness baked into this particular plot bit is that we know what is going to happen to David, and La'an actually says it out loud to Kirk: David dies at the hands of the Klingons in the third Star Trek movie. "Your little boy is gonna die just like you, bleeding out in a dark corner of space."
Although Spock got the creepiest bit of ick body horror. He is currently torn between his human half and his Vulcan half, the latter of which is represented by his former fiancee T'Pring... cutting his freaking ears off! Did we really need to see that? Although I'll admit I was freaked about her talking about how his heart isn't in the right place, too. Logic won the day for Spock, putting him back in control and revealing that he had wielded those scissors himself. Gack.
The boarding party led by Pike had us thinking that rescue had arrived... no, come on. We all knew that it was yet more hallucinations. We didn't really need to see Ortegas writhing in the transporter beam, Una stabbing herself to get rid of her Illyrian blood, Pike with the chef knife finger chopping. Sam Kirk getting sucked out of the ship was probably the ugliest scene in the episode.
So yes, the episode was quite effective. But what was the point? Just to creep us out? Or are the Paramount suits planning to give us yet another spinoff we don't want, as in Division 12, a Star Trek version of The X-Files?
Could I vote "no" right now?
Bits:
— Several people have mentioned that this episode rips off the 1997 movie Event Horizon, which I have never seen. For what it's worth. I also thought there were some bits of homage to The Shining, which I have seen.
— Sam Kirk mentioned his son Peter, who is in the original series episode "Operation: Annihilate!"
— They kept getting into the turbolift. I would not get into a turbolift in these circumstances. Isn't anyone else afraid of getting stuck forever?
— Refusing freshly baked cookies is indeed madness.
— Chapel treated Spock's ears in his quarters. That was nice. I still want them to be a couple, I'll admit it.
Quotes:
Spock: "Curious. The signal is being broadcast over an old Federation frequency."
La'an: "Spock, no one likes a backseat sensor reader."
Kirk: "Well, that’s unnerving with a side of unsettling."
La'an: "I don't understand. It's like everyone took a coffee break."
Spock: "And never returned."
T'Pring: "Our love died because your heart was not in the right place. Let's change that, shall we?"
My dislike of horror on Star Trek makes it difficult for me to be fair here. Anyone want to rate this episode?
Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.
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