Star Trek Strange New Worlds: Tomorrow's Enterprise

La'an: "You know what's not in the book? Time travel is heartbreaking. The only day we have is today."

This was Uhura's episode, and Celia Rose Gooding did it justice. In certain scenes, I could swear she was channeling Nichelle Nichols in the best possible way. Uhura has changed a lot since she joined the crew of the Enterprise, and this episode took her in a whole new direction that was great for her character.

I had never heard of a white hole and thought they'd made it up, but no. Apparently, it's the hypothetical exact mathematical opposite of a black hole. Although I was overcome by math paralysis when I started reading about it on Wikipedia. Quantum entanglement, the black hole and white hole are different sides of the same coin, yadda yadda yadda.

But of course, the important bit was that while they were investigating the white hole, Scotty was killed, and the present day Uhura and a year-from-now Uhura managed to team up through the white hole to save him. The worst Star Trek movie, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, gave us Uhura and Scotty as a couple, and back then it went over like a lead balloon. But that may have been the fault of the movie because it actually worked here. It certainly increased the level of Uhura's commitment to saving Scotty, since they were a couple a year from now.

The scenes a year in the future gave us so many fun tidbits. Of course, Jim Kirk is the captain, and Pike... is an admiral? Christine Chapel, with very Majel Barrett hair, is engaged to marry Roger Korby. When they need an excellent pilot to carry out the experiment on the black hole (the other side of the white hole, remember?), Kirk calls in Captain Erica Ortegas, who is an instructor on Bindar 12. No Sulu yet.

The medical team is changing. Dr. Boyce is in charge. M'Benga is considering transferring to Vulcan permanently; if so, Dr. McCoy will be full time. (We don't get to meet McCoy, though.) In one scene, we briefly see M'Ress, the catwoman alien from The Animated Series. The most distressing tidbit was when Uhura-1 asked Kirk where La'an was. He looked upset and changed the subject.

The best bit was the introduction of the poker game. In Trek's first spinoff, Star Trek: The Next Generation, the weekly poker game was a thing and everyone loved it. In fact, Captain Picard joining the weekly poker game for the first time was the last scene in the entire series. During a five day solar storm that confined Enterprise to Starbase 6 for several days, Kirk taught Uhura how to play poker, and being Queen of the Bluff is just another piece of how Uhura had changed in the past year.

I liked that the music was a language coming from the white hole because communication is Uhura's raison d'être. That Uhura put the answer in musical notes on an ugly tablet in her quarters as a message to herself. And that the past and present were the white hole and black hole connected.

But the one big thing that didn't work for me was the blue twirlies turning out to be a space baby that both Uhuras had to "deliver." We are the midwives, the baby is breaching? Come on. They tried to acknowledge how stupid it sounded by trying to make it funny, but it still didn't work. Even though the black hole did look a bit like a baby's head crowning.

But the big rewind scene was awesome. So were the parallel scenes with both Pike and Kirk realizing that Uhura wasn't their Uhura. And the one where the older Uhura told her younger self that she is doing great, and to never stop growing.

The final scene brought together both Uhuras, essentially merging them into the same person. At the weekly poker game, Uhura-2 narrated that today was the only day that mattered. At the captain's table dinner party, Uhura-1 narrated that she would no longer spend all of her time brooding about the future. Instead, she is going to spend every moment doing what she loves with the people she loves: her Starfleet family.

Very nice.

Bits:

— Stardate 2873.2. Uhura's personal log. The earlier Uhura, that is. Uhura returned from a refresher course and Scotty was waiting in the transporter room to ask her out. She shot him down.

— Stardate 2876.2. Uhura-2's personal log. Uhura and Scotty, now a couple, were canoodling in the turbolift.

— Title musings: With a name like "Tomorrow's Enterprise," it had to be time travel. One of the best Next Gen episodes was "Yesterday's Enterprise." The plot wasn't similar, but it was a nice homage.

— The music from the white hole sounded a little like the famous five notes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

— Jenna Mitchell, a character we met early in Strange New Worlds, was Gary Mitchell's stepsister. I'd always wondered if the name was a coincidence. Of course not.

— Uhura-1 said that she didn't like being pressured... while holding the dilithium diamond pressuring container.

— The repeated image of the coffee being creamed from above was beautiful.

— Gold acting stars for Celia Rose Gooding, of course.

— In this week's hair report, there were a lot of changes. Other than the Nichelle Nichols hairdo on Gooding, I thought Chapel's was the best. Honorable mention for the mop Ortegas was sporting. And of course, a year in the future, everyone was in Original Series uniforms.

— Just one question. La'an strongly suggested that Uhura not try to change the future. but then La'an helped her do it anyway. Did Uhura break the temporal rules? Did La'an? Will there be consequences?

Quotes:

Ortegas: "Anyone ever tell you you're no fun?"
Spock: "You do."

Pike: "So we're a sitting duck and we can't see a thing."
Ortegas: "Is it a Tuesday?"
Una: "Feels like a Tuesday."

Uhura: "It was happening, but it hadn't happened yet. Not that I remember. I... it was just for a second, I felt..."
La'an: "Realities shifting? Metal taste in your mouth? Vertigo? Dislocation? Crushing need to pee?"

(I really love the idea that a temporal incident includes physical symptoms. Especially needing to pee. It makes sense if you were time shifting that that would happen... no, wait. It doesn't. Never mind.)

Future Ortegas: "What could possibly go wrong?"

Scotty: "I didn't realize you fancied this type of thing."
Uhura-1: "Well, I contain multitudes."

Uhura-2: "Everything I am in Starfleet, everything I learned, it's because you believed in me."
Pike: "It was an honor, my friend."
Honestly, that exchange gave me chills. It was like he was saying goodbye to her because she doesn't know what's going to happen to him.

Spock: "The red lights on your EV screen will change to green if and when they make contact with...?" (looks at Kirk)
Kirk: "Honestly, Spock, you're better off not knowing."
Spock: "I am not."
Kirk: "Fine! It's a, uh, space baby."

At different points in the episode, several characters said, "I hate time travel." I thought it might be fun to intersperse them in the quotes above, but it was actually sort of annoying. So I didn't.

Will they be a couple in season five?

A quick look back at season four

To say this season was uneven is an understatement. It was a veritable see-saw sending us flying out of the atmosphere. But four of the ten episodes were excellent, among the best in the series. In a recent interview, probably to address fan complaints, Paul Wesley said that season five does not have gimmick episodes. I've taken heart and will keep reviewing to the end.

4.1 "Valles Marineris" is very good traditional Star Trek.

4.6 "Off-Hour" features electrifying action when the Enterprise is sucked into a slipstream. Just terrific. You don't want to miss this one.

4.8 "Orders of Magnitude" is possibly the best SNW episode ever, and I don't say that lightly.

And 4.10, "Tomorrow's Enterprise," turned out to be a very good season finale. Let's rate it three out of four cups of perfectly creamed coffee.

See you back here for the fifth and final season, and hopefully more. Because as unhappy as I've been with the gimmick episodes, I still want them to have a chance to fix it with Star Trek: Year One. What did you guys think?

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

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