Star Trek Strange New Worlds: Orders of Magnitude

"Commanding a starship levies a heavy cost. There is no hiding who you are once you sit in that chair."

Please tell me why, when they are clearly capable of making an excellent episode like this one, are we getting dreck with puppets and soap operas?

In "Orders of Magnitude," the wonderful Joe Morton gave a powerful guest performance as Admiral Simon Reeger, hero of the Klingon war. While Pike and Una were out of comm range, Admiral Reeger popped in by shuttle and took command of Enterprise in order to chase a cloaked Romulan ship by its gamma ray trail. This particular cloaked ship was responsible for a massacre where five million Federation colonists were killed. Certainly a strong reason to commandeer Enterprise. Or at least it seemed so at first.

James Kirk happened to stop by again, apparently to squeeze in a check-up with M'Benga and visit his brother Sam, but in truth hoping to possibly hook up with La'an. Since Kirk was ranking officer on the ship, Reeger was forced to make him his first officer for this mission even though Kirk wasn't part of the crew. (Although he visits so often he might as well be.)

The first obvious strike was Reeger deciding to leave Pike and the landing party behind without even waiting to tell them, inadvertently putting them in danger. When Kirk questioned this decision, Reeger dressed Kirk down for questioning his orders on the bridge and trashed Kirk's father George Kirk, pretty much implying that George was afraid of combat. George had served under Reeger when he commanded the Constitution during a famous battle during the Klingon War.

Strike two was when an old cargo vessel got in the way during the pursuit and Reeger risked destroying it in order to disable their sensors and comms. Reeger didn't seem to care who died in the service of his need for revenge – Reeger's wife and two daughters were killed by that invisible ship – and he blamed Kirk for causing a delay by "debating" the issue.

Why are all Starfleet admirals evil?

But strike three was way far on the other side of the line. Reeger jumped to the conclusion that all of the inhabitants of Argus II were in league with the villainous ship and commanded the crew to carry out General Order 24, killing everyone on the planet. A total of 5,321 "souls," as Ortegas put it. That was an omigod moment.

While the bridge crew were all shocked, La'an and Ortegas, who had expressed great admiration for Reeger until this point, appeared reluctant but still ready to carry out his order. Kirk was the only one who took action, volunteering to set up the phaser upgrade in order to sabotage it (which by the way nearly killed him) and trying secretly, and unsuccessfully, to contact Starfleet and get permission to bench Reeger.

And that's where the miracle drug cordrazine came in. The final confrontation between Reeger and Kirk on the bridge, with Reeger's paranoic tirade culminating in a threat, with phaser in hand, to blow a hole through Kirk's head, was taut, edge-of-your-seat Star Trek, marvelous work by two accomplished actors. Did Kirk drug Reeger with this outcome in mind?

Kirk could have easily stolen the cordrazine when he was in Sick Bay waiting for M'Benga. Later, in the Ready Room, Kirk actually had his fingers on top of Reeger's cup of special coffee. It was obviously Kirk, going to the limit to save 5,000 lives. But M'Benga, who served with Reeger and knew him well, covered for Kirk and confessed untruthfully to drugging Reeger. Later, Chapel accused M'Benga of taking the blame for what Kirk did because he wanted to leave Enterprise. Yet another reference to M'Benga leaving the ship soon. Sigh.

There was a good bit of Kirk brothers interaction that I very much enjoyed. They always act combative and competitive, but of course Sam ended up covering for Jim. And the two Kirks, with M'Benga's help, put together what happened at that famous battle – that Reeger had been unconscious and George Kirk had been acting captain. M'Benga said that George had refused to challenge Reeger's stolen valor, and that Reeger had punished George for it for years. And M'Benga suggested that Reeger was kicked upstairs so that he wouldn't command another ship. This episode showed us why kicking someone upstairs is never a good idea.

An invisible ship was a perfect bit of symbolism. In a way, no one could really "see" the evil but Reeger. And it turned out that the invisible ship had already left Argus II. They would have killed thousands of possibly innocent people for nothing.

Meanwhile, Pike and the landing party consisting of Una, Chapel, Uhura, and the horrible Cadet A'Sha, were stranded on the moon with a B-plot during the entire episode. That turned out to be a major problem when they realized that the source of the distress signal they were answering was a huge cache of stolen weapons, and a trap.

When the Andorian leader of the smugglers stabbed A'Sha with one of the deadly crystals in the cave, Uhura bluffed and pretended to help the Andorians alter their comms to attract Starfleet vessels, even as Pike was dressing her down. (Did he know she was faking?) Then she set off a high pitched sound attack, and turned action hero on the smugglers.

I thought A'Sha would end up "learning a valuable lesson" or dying because she made a stupid mistake, but no. She realized all on her own that she wasn't suited to Starfleet, and wow, I certainly agree. It was like a bookend to Uhura, who thought she wasn't Starfleet material when she first arrived, but as it turned out, she was. Cadet A'Sha actually didn't belong in Starfleet and made the right decision by leaving. And Uhura got a well-deserved promotion to Lieutenant Junior Grade.

Actually, they could have left the entire landing party mission out of the episode. It was an extra long episode. Apologies for an extra long review to go with it.

Bits:

— Stardate 2179.3. Enterprise orbited an unnamed M-class moon and later visited (and nearly destroyed) Argus II.

— Kirk knocked La'an out. So much for that possible romance.

— In the excellent original series episode "A Taste of Armageddon," General Order 24 was initially an instruction to level a planet. It was a bluff on Kirk's part.

— Cordrazine was a major plot point in what is considered the best episode of the original series, "The City on the Edge of Forever."

— The plot of this episode was very Moby Dick. The best Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan, was also very Moby Dick. So was my favorite original series episode, "The Doomsday Machine." Yes, they went to the well a bit too often, but if it gets us episodes like this, it's okay by me.

— In fact, my favorite guest performance in the original series was by William Windom in "Doomsday." I'm happy to compare it favorably to Joe Morton's here. Both performances were that good.

— I liked the plot bit about the Kirk brothers altering the biosensor readings so that Sam was mistaken for Jim.

— The mentions of Hemmer made me realize that I still miss him. I wish they'd kept him in the cast much longer than they did.

— Paul Wesley gave a recent interview that attempted to assure fans that the final season of Strange New Worlds would not be about puppets and soap operas. They have apparently heard the fan complaints.

Quotes:

Kirk: "Wow. That's good stuff. What'd you call it?"
M'Benga: "Cordrazine. It's new. A few drops work wonders. Larger doses can cause paranoia."

Spock: "Of course, the logical choice would have been to promote an officer with experience on Enterprise."
Kirk: "But I've had more command experience, not all of it welcome. Don't worry, Spock. I'm sure one day you'll get to aim that logical mind of yours at some lucky captain."

Uhura: "You must be excited to be on your very first landing party. I personally requested that you join the mission."
Cadet A'Sha: "I have done dozens of training missions. This one is no more interesting than any other."
Chapel: (whispers to Uhura) "She's so adorable."

Kirk: "Sir, as first officer, my job is to provide viable options. We can brainstorm alternatives, probes..."
Reeger: "Five million people were killed by that ship. I have no intention of allowing it to escape to claim more innocent families."
Kirk: "Admiral, all I'm saying is that there must be a middle ground."
Reeger: "If war has taught me anything, it's taught me that the middle ground is where most people die. Maybe you should go and think about that."

Scotty: "It's a bluff, right? The Admiral's not really gonna wipe out a planet, is he?"

Andorian Leader: "I suggest you work fast. Your comrade's turning blue. And not in a good way."

M'Benga: "This is mutiny."
Kirk: "I understand the importance of the chain of command. But there's duty, there's following orders, and there's right and wrong. And killing an entire planet is wrong."
You think?

And the moral of the story? Never meet your heroes. This is an absolutely excellent episode, one of the best of the series. Four out of four drops of cordrazine,

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

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