Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

i too am inclined to concur

Yes.

Can't knock it. The argument that there isn't enough of it compared to 'regular' seasons in the Before Days is kinda counterbalanced by the fact that 1) we're getting it to start with and 2) without pretending every moment/frame lands, the ensemble vibes ride hard throughout and it generally just looks great too.

What "minor complaint" could there have possibly been to make it policy all veterans had to hang out with the ambassador?

yeah that is a deeply weird policy
…perhaps solely designed for maximum dramatic conflict in this very episode

i suppose dude himself complained to starfleet brass

I can't believe I didnt notice it was Bunny from the Wire.

i suppose dude himself complained to starfleet brass

The most generous interpretation is yes he did this, in a bid to suss out the person who knows his secret, but the way he reacts at the end doesn't work for that I don't think.

By pure coincidence after we watched this we fired up a TNG and it turned out to be the episode about the Romulan maybe-defector. No shade to SNW but TNG def did it better, so much more psychological depth to that character.

I I think Subspace Rhapsody might be an oddity among all the Star Trek Goes Camp! episodes in that it's entirely self-referential: everyone is aware of the singing, the problem is to stop it, the method is to obey the three-act rule - the only way out is through.

If Starfleet sings showtunes and the Klingons rap, of course I wanna know what the Romulans, Gorn, Tholians, etc. all do. If I stop to reconsider this season, I feel like many of the A plots resolve with some sort of "I got this/you got this" positivism, while the B or C plots have been more interesting. La'an is great. I wish the season was longer too. Now that the experimental stuff is out of the way, we can get on with some basic Five Year Mission action... for one more episode.

I just...WHAT an episode.

the B or C plots have been more interesting. La'an is great. I wish the season was longer too.

All true. Making this episode an actual big multi-arc resolver that worked in context was a real stroke of genius; if this had been a random one-off, it would still have been a treat but this was something else.

I have bunnies thoughts!

Not one but two Buffy refs in this, which made me laugh heartily ("will we pouf into bunnies" and "I have a theory" said a bit later).
Ethan Peck's mellifluous low voice. Yum.

But oh dear GOD, most of those songs were dreadful, and a lot of the lyrics, which I get the neccesary exposition, did so in a terribly slow repeaty manner at times which got me frustrated. "I'm the ex" I found especially clunky a line. The ones I did like was the first one - sounded like a Gotye song - and the "finale" which was joy. But the rest were terrible X Factor type autotunes and really Not My Taste.

But yeh overall it was lightweight fun.

I doubt we will be bunnies.

I do wish they’d referenced like Les Miz for this instead of Wicked

But it was fun! La’an’s song ruled

The Klingons bursting into K-Pop was fucking hilarious

this was Not My Taste either but at least there was good character stuff for la’an/spock/chapell/wristwatch

however, being sent off on a priority one mission just before what almost has to be a gorn episode does not bode well for captain batel and the cayuga

chapell/wristwatch

Hahaha!

Lmao

Did kirk's very presence on the enterprise cause the female crew to start wearing skirts or am I imagining that?

Nope, never ever watching that again.

It always walks a fine line of being too Whedony, this blew right past that.

There was definite fealty to the Whedonverse crowd, I do think. Which I personally don't mind, but I get why others would.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of Once More With Feeling, and I love some musicals, but this was not for me. I found the whole thing cringey.

I was cracking up at one scene with Carol Kane because she was doing the “I am in a musical singing my ass off on stage” face

you know, the one where you’ve spent years hearing about how you have to really project your voice on stage

oh ffs, stopped watching after 5 mins

*looks up from listening to the soundtrack* Sorry, you all say something?

i'm with Ned, this was hugely entertaining, some songs were better than others but fun and a la Once More With Feeling used the musical to do a lot of character and plot advancement

I would really have loved a Gilbert& Sullivan-esque bit. I thought one was upcoming when there was a scene where Uhura and/or Spock rattled off a ton of rapid technobabble... imagine that in a G&S showtune! That would have been the tits. But no, we had to have 4 versions of "let it go" instead.

it was fun but it’s nowhere close to what Once More W Feeling did as far as songcraft. not to be a snob about it but i maybe set the bar too high expecting something like that.
i mean I listened to that OMWF soundtrack for ~years~. But this, i didn’t find v many of these songs enjoyable as songs in their own right at all, they felt too over crammed w info, sort of over-wordy idk.

but i loved uhura’z song & laans song and i did really enjoy the episode overall

love that we got more Laan & Kirk, that was really well done & v moving

have to admit that i largely skipped through the songs (to the point where i missed the k(lingon)-pop.) not into musicals apart from 'jesus christ superstar' (my mom had the album when i was little) although also 'wicked' made me cry a few years ago ;_;

but it's fine, whatever. never saw buffy. weirdly it never bothered me when 'the magicians' broke into song, perhaps because it was so very campy from the start

You know who should have done a musical episode? Justified.

Nah, Breaking Bad.

Mad Men should have made this a full episode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKgPTkIulEI

Yeah I don’t think I ever wanna see that episode again but I’m glad it exists

I'm not into musicals (I have a very hard time concentrating on story delivered through lyrics) but I did like Chapel's swing number. I wish there were more dancing though!

Anyone clock Sam coming after Pike's crown for highest hair?

Any surprise that Laan was the biggest Belter of the cast?

does not bode well for captain batel and the cayuga

I refuse to believe anything bad will happen to Captain Dimples.

Even before the finale, this season is already guaranteed to be the most consistently good season of Star Trek ever. The first episode I would say was bad, and the memory loss episode was a mixed bag, but everything else has been great.

The Gorn episode of S1 was the worst episode of that season. Just a dreary episode, with that silly TOS monster being given a story that's far too dark for Trek. Hope they do a better job with the Gorn in this finale.

I didn't really get this either - I guess I just don't like contemporary musical theatre.

Bad hot take: is an episode like this to a US audience like watching Eurovision is for Europeans - there's some other levels you have to "get".

Thought it was awful sorry - hey, if you like Star Trek, you’ll probably love these mediocre songs written by unknowns for actors to try to sing. I love when they play with stuff a bit or lean into the camp, but expecting me to sit thru generic songs for half the episode was just dire.

Anyway all you haters above are wrong but more on that later.

But as for the new one: whew, not having kept track of all the series I can't say for sure but this definitely felt like the biggest 'to be continued...' since, you know, "Mr. Worf, fire." I should have guessed when those transporter signatures looked a little different near the end but figured out that we were heading to waiting on season 3 within the last minute. Now we wait...for longer than usual given the strikes. But in the meantime, one more piece of the TOS puzzle in place!

Holy crap, I never saw one of those in Stars Hollow before.

kinda wonder how many other people might have been alive when the cayuga smashed into the planet

"Hey look a ship has come to save us! Wait where are we going."

More fuel for the folks who think that Spock is basically a big jerk

that was cool - albeit in a pretty tonally conventional season finale kind of way

I wish these seasons were longer - like, not the old 26 eps but could definitely have handled another 4-5 hours of this

tbf spock is, canonically, kind of a jerk (but not *really*)

this spock is not yet that hard, but still ready to call the shot, as in the season 2 premiere

i don't feel like this was a great episode, and i wasn't into the musical, but i still think this series is easily the best exploration of these characters, TOS included

i'm not sure yet if it's good or bad that we (theoretically) already know their fates, but it remains possible that working within that framework will be great. i'm . . . cautiously optimistic(?) about it for the first time in forever

also i'm sorry but i'm flat-out gonna say it

ethan peck > leonard nimoy

He's great in the role! Leonard will always have it for me on the nostalgia level and more, but Peck's sharp in his own way.

exciting episode but maaaaan fuck to be continued finales I HATE WAITING

love leonard (although tbf he was no rollin hand) but like, often enough he just had to wear purple eye-shadow and lift an eyebrow while shitting on mccoy

there's half a century of lore now and peck absolutely does it justice while also expressing a much wider spectrum of emotions than leonard was ever called upon to do

feel like chapel/jess bush was the breakout star of the season, and, well, roger kirby will have to be extremely impressive. you know, before that other stuff