Star Trekking, Across The...
Star Wars: The Clone Wars 3.5 “Corruption”
I did say something about badass lady senators. Also badass lady planetary rulers. This episode is all Padme and Satine being badass.
Corrupt government officials on Mandalore are letting black market smugglers bring in supplies, in part because they’re struggling with legitimate trade. This results in contaminated tea being served to schoolchildren. CW: Death of child. Yeah, some of them die, some are saved.
And at the end Satine asks for a Jedi to help…please don’t send Anakin. Please just don’t send Anakin.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars 3.6 “The Academy”
Please don’t send…
…Ahsoka. Okay, that’s marginally better than sending Anakin. Ahsoka is “hired” to teach the cadets more about corruption and how to spot it.
Oh, boy do they spot it. Unfortunately, Ahsoka overestimates them and shenanigans ensue. She might be their age, but…
Honestly, I’ll settle for all the Ahsoka time I can get.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.1 “Strange New Worlds”
Sorry, Anson Mount, you’re a great starship captain, but you need to go back and take more riding lessons (fortunately the horse was clearly used to dealing with people who didn’t know what they were doing).
I hold that Mount’s Pike, though, is the Star Trek captain I most want to serve under, and finally getting to Strange New Worlds has certainly not weakened that impression. His parties are epic.
They’re going to rescue Una, who went missing during a first contact mission with a species who, it turns out, have invented matter-antimatter bombs rather than warp drive.
“Screw the Prime Directive.”
I’m inclined to agree that when your actions have already messed with a civilization, General Order Number One shouldn’t really apply.
But then, I’ve always been shaky on General Order Number One.
My big dislike: Changing Spock and T’Pring’s relationship. I get that “Vulcans practice arranged marriage” might seem problematic in 2024. But they aren’t human and given Vulcan reproductive and sexual biology, it makes sense. But it makes T’Pring pretty much evil and…yeah, no, not a fan.
They also messed with my Uhura headcanon. She should have been the helmsman ;).
Other than that, absolutely a fan.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.2 “Children of the Comet”
The Enterprise is studying a comet when they realize it’s going to hit an uninhabited planet. Preventing a natural disaster has never fallen under General Order Number One as long as it can be done without the people noticing…and these people don’t appear to have telescopes yet.
Unfortunately, the comet isn’t…a natural comet. And it has an escort of space monks determined to allow it to stay on course, to bring life or death.
Uhura comes into her own in this episode, a clear answer to the long time complaints that she sometimes only knew how to say “Hailing frequencies open.” She’s on her cadet cruise and lacks confidence…and she responds to that by humming.
Celia Rose Gooding, a former Broadway actor, was a perfect choice for the role. A good match for Nichelle Nichols and an awesome singing voice.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars 3.7 “Assassin”
Surprise surprise, Aura Sing isn’t dead. And Ahsoka has a premonition that Padme is in danger. Why? The Force probably picked her because Anakin was on another planet and couldn’t help.
This episode is really an exploration of how Force visions work rather than being particularly heavy on plot. Ahsoka has to learn to decipher what she’s being told and shown, but obviously she saves Padme, who has pretty solid plot armor.
(It’s the Hutts, of course).
Star Wars: The Clone Wars 3.8 “Evil Plans”
There are droid spas on Coruscant, because of course there are. And a rather battered R2 is determined to indulge. Never mind that he’s supposed to be rescuing a diplomatic dinner by getting the ingredient somebody forgot. Somebody who’s name wasn’t C3PO, honest.
C3PO is abducted and tortured, but there’s “nothing in his head,” which we both knew. Unfortunately, they use threatening him to get to R2.
Now the Hutts have the senate building plans, including the non-public bits, and C3PO has no idea why he’s late because they did a strategic memory wipe on both droids. Oops. This isn’t going to end well…
R2 getting seduced by a droid spa was funny, though.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.3 “Ghosts of Illyria”
The Illyrians are a species that practices genetic augmentation…and as such are at odds with the Federation, which bans it.
To the Illyrians, it’s a way of adapting to worlds instead of changing worlds to suit them.
And in a fun bait and switch, it’s not La’an Noonian Singh who’s the secret augment (wouldn’t you change your name? Just saying).
It’s Una Chin-Riley, who turns out to be an Illyrian who pretended to be human in order to enter StarFleet, and has unspecified augmentations including an improved immune system.
Pike is now sheltering her…she should be in the stockade for this little game. We play a bit of a game of how many regulations we can break in one episode.
The actual plot involves an “abandoned” Illyrian colony and an infection transmitted by light. We haven’t had a good, old fashioned “The entire crew goes insane” episode in a while. (Alas, this one did not feature any rapiers).
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.4 “Memento Mori”
It’s a milk run…the Enterprise is in the area and sent to do some colonial resupply. Specifically, air filters. But when they get there, they find there’s been a massacre. A few survivors are on a ship…but they’re bait.
I dislike evil races strongly. This episode, unfortunately, leans into that trope, characterizing the Gorn as seeing other species as nothing but prey. I’ve always wanted to see them redeemed…not made worse.
But it does make for some intriguing interstellar combat…that said, it’s my least favorite episode so far, both for the Gorn being Evil and a major continuity error.
To escape the Gorn, the Enterprise slingshots around a black hole.
That, canonically, should have sent them back in time…you know, like every other slingshot maneuver. And if anything’s going to do it…
There was some great stuff in the episode, but I can’t ignore those two issues, unfortunately.
Star Wars: Clone Wars 3.9 “Hunt For Ziro”
One thing that has never made sense to me is Hutts (and even female ones) liking to watch sexy humanoid dances. They’re not remotely humanoid.
Ziro’s also a xenophile, but not humanoid. So…maybe Hutts are just prone to it? I don’t get it.
Ziro escaped a while back. Obi-Wan is accompanied by a Jedi who makes Anakin Skywalker look quiet and cautious, I mean, wow. Bane’s also looking for him.
But his ex does the deed before anyone else can, apparently just because he broke her heart, although the fact that he has blackmail material she can sell to the other Hutts might be a motivation…
Fun caper, poor Ziro.
Star Wars: Clone Wars 3.10 “Heroes On Both Sides”
Count Dooku is, as we know, evil. So is Palpatine. That’s the point.
Ahsoka and Padme travel to Raxus, behind enemy lines, to negotiate with a member of the Separatist parliament.
Ahsoka learns there are, in fact, good people who think the Separatist cause is right. She might be one step closer to realizing the entire galaxy is being manipulated. Maybe.
Star Wars: Clone Wars 3.11 “Pursuit of Peace”
Padme and Bail are trying to defeat yet another funding bill, which would be quite boring but somebody sends bounty hunters to take them both out.
In other words, another excuse for Padme to be badass, but it also touches on what the war is doing to ordinary people on, no doubt, both sides. Brownouts, lack of running water, food shortages…
War is profitable for the rich on the bodies of the poor, and they aren’t afraid to say it.
Star Wars: Clone Wars 3.12 “Nightsisters”
The Nightsisters are also known as the Daughters of Dathomir. They’re an order of women who wield “magic” (i.e., the Force, but used in different ways).
Ventress was one of them before being claimed as a youngling, then falling to the Dark Side and being recruited by Dooku. Palpatine has decided she’s too powerful and must be eliminated.
Dooku thinks she’s dead. But after they fail to assassinate him, the Mother of Dathomir…the head of this order…has a plan.
Shudder. Then again, we might be better off if they’d killed Dooku. But if they had, Palpatine might just have replaced him with Ventress anyway.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.5 “Spock Amok”
After the amount of damage the Enterprise took last episode, the ship has to go to Starbase 1 to be repaired. This gives most of the crew the chance to take a vacation.
Most. Number One refuses to do so. Pike and Spock are embroiled in some diplomatic stuff.
T’Pring travels from Vulcan to spend some time with her fiancé and they have a raging fight, Vulcan style. This means harsh eyebrows and comments about compatibility, because Vulcans.
Spock suggests that they do a telepathic ritual to get to know each other better (he has an anxiety dream about being too human for her, which doesn’t help).
It goes wrong…or right…and they switch bodies. T’Pring has to negotiate with the aliens and Spock has to capture a Vulcan criminal. Whom he punches. (T’Pring later tells him that was a perfectly logical thing to do).
It’s basically a bottle episode, but a lot of fun.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.6 “Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach”
Pike finds his lost love on her idyllic, Utopian world, with technology so high the Federation finds itself on the wrong side of the Prime Directive.
This has to be my favorite episode so far. It has all of the elements of the best of TOS, except for one thing…
…they stole the entire plot!
I was quite slow to realize it, but this episode is, of course, a riff on “Those Who Walk Away From Omelas.” It’s been fashionable to play with this story, which is as old as I am, lately. And now I’m re-reading it real quick because it’s been too long. Yes, you can find it online.
To be more precise, this episode inserts the plot of “Those Who Walk Away From Omelas” into the TOS episode format, in much the tradition of “The Doomsday Machine” which was, of course, a Saberhagen Berserker story. Well, the non-plot, because really the story doesn’t have or need a plot, it’s a mood piece.
A TV show needs a plot. And the worst part is that Pike can’t save the child. Taking the child away doesn’t just remove the wealth of the place, but causes its utter destruction.
He can’t save the child. He has to, like the colonists, walk away.
Yeah, definitely my favorite episode. Sometimes stealing from the best is the way you have to do it!
Divergent Series 2: Insurgent
Believe it or not, this was actually a bit better than the first movie. (Even if I did come up with a better story while watching it).
It still has the basic superpower problem. Also, no, nobody can cut their own hair and do that neat a job of it. No, not even your chosen one YA protagonist.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.7 “The Serene Squall”
A former Starfleet counselor requests help for colonists. She’s evil. I pegged her as evil right away. Maybe because she had something vaguely Romulan about her?
In any case, it turns out to be all about luring Spock, specifically, into a trap. There are Orion pirates (Orion males can grow facial hair, by the way), and a fun bait and switch with a trap the Orions set that visually resembles the Tholian Web. Both me and my husband swore.
But she’s after Spock so she can use him to blackmail T’Pring into returning her husband to her…her logic-rejecting Vulcan husband who’s in a rehab center.
Spock tricks her into thinking he’s dumped T’Pring for Nurse Chapel. (T’Pring is not fooled, but does suggest a “rebonding ceremony” when they get together. By which she means…you know).
But Captain Angel’s husband turns out to be…drumroll…Sybok! Sarek’s bastard. Spock’s half brother. I honestly had thought the franchise had completely forgotten he ever existed.
He’s still in jail, but we know he’ll get out.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.8 “The Elysian Kingdom”
Remember Shore Leave? IMO the worst episode of TOS and one of the worst episodes in the history of Star Trek.
“The Elysian Kingdom” takes a similar concept…and does it beautifully. I slightly wonder if this wasn’t a stray trapped in the holodeck script, using a different explanation because holodecks haven’t been invented yet.
But it traps the crew in a fantasy world, with them all playing roles in…a story M’Benga was reading to his dying daughter.
Who has “days” to live at this point. There’s no cure. He’s tried everything.
Now the sentient nebula wants her as a playmate…and has the ability to transform her into an energy being, saving her life (or rather preserving her consciousness).
M’Benga agrees. Bittersweet.
As a note, Celia Rose Gooding. Never going to happen, but I would travel to New York and pay good money to see a musical adaptation of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe with her in the role of the White Witch.
Failing that, somebody let this kid play a villain, because she was the best evil queen ever.
(And after finding out about what happened on Broadway I think I like her).