Logline
When the USS Enterprise investigates an attack on a colony at the edge of Federation space, Captain Pike and his crew face the return of a formidable enemy.
Written by Henry Alonso Myers
Directed by Maja Vrvilo
I'll say it, the adult gorn, in those space suits look awesome, I'm a sucker for more animalistic races in star trek
The adult gorn was easily my favourite part of the episode!
There's clearly a horror strain in the Gorn arc, with pretty strong echos/homages of Alien ... and I am all here for it. With the scene of Batel warding off the young Gorn, I knew straight away she'd been impregnated because of the clear Alien reference.
I’m a sucker for more animalistic races in star trek
Bring back the Xindi insectoids!!!
I'm impressed by Gorn engineering now. Making a space suit with what looked like dozens of vacuum- grade articulated tail joints can't be easy.
The more I think about the Chapel plot, the more I think it was a blunder.
If she survived the initial attack on the Cayuga, it's likely that others did, too - at the very least, it should give Spock a reason to look before hot-dropping the saucer onto the planet.
Gotta agree, it seems like an unforced error. A good chunk of the audience knows she shows up in TOS, which robs the whole idea of any tension it might have, and on top of that it feels plot armor-y to have one person survive and then not check for anyone else.
They could've just contrived to have Spock and Chapel be the best persons for the saucer deorbiting-- Spock as the precise vulcan/science officer to place the thrusters, Chapel as medbay's lead in case they could bring anyone back from the Cayuga.
I'm fine with Chapel being stuck there - I think the tension comes from the overall Spock/Chapel emotional arc, rather than wondering whether she will survive - but the sequence practically demands a second scan with the newfangled tricorders to verify that there are no other life signs on the ship.
Isn’t the point though that the Gorn interference field was preventing any scans, comms or transport? The tricorder wouldn’t have worked there. And sending rescue teams would have been dangerous given Gorn belligerence, demarcation line or not.
The anti-Gorn tricorders seemed to cut through the interference on the surface well enough.
True, but that’s on the ground and short range. There’s specific dialogue to show that it’s interfering with signals between space and ground.
SPOCK: I detect a counter-frequency emanating from the planet. It appears to be negating all scans, communications, and transporter signals between here and there.
Spock can’t even scan for life signs on Cayuga. The best they have is passive sensors like spectrometry.
UNA: Still trying to scan for life signs?
SPOCK: I theorized I might be able to find a frequency gap through the interference field, but I have not managed to discover one yet.
UNA: Spock, I don't think anyone's alive over there.
SPOCK: Spectrometric analysis suggests there are still pockets of oxygen on board. It is possible someone could have survived.
That’s why they had to do a visual confirmation and discovered Cayuga’s sickbay had been blown away.
All that being true, I think the discovery of a single survivor should have scuttled the entire mission.
I was just trying to answer the technological criticisms about why Spock didn’t search.
I see where the criticism is coming from, but I can also see there are all sorts of extenuating circumstances around it (not to mention lack of time) and to take the plot there for a search would kind of kill the story momentum.
It’s not invalid as a criticism, just saying that tech reasons are covered.
HOLY CRAP, I AM SO GLAD I WENT INTO THIS SPOILER FREE!!!1!
Someone posted earlier this week that it looked like Captain Batel was having a really bad day, and yup, she definitely was. My heart sank when she revealed the Gorn egg infestation. My money's on her being the sole "main" character casualty from the events of this episode.
I didn't know Scotty was going to show up so that was a total surprise. Finding out he was Pelia's perfect student who somehow flunked made all the sense in the world, ignoring the obvious small universe complaints.
I LOVED all the effects shots of the Cuyuga's debris field. I initially thought crashing the remains of the saucer section into the Gorn jammer was complete overkill, like throwing a dinner plate at a toothpick, but then realized the jammer must have been absolutely massive and far away from the settlement. It looked like it was relatively nearby upon initial viewing which didn't appear to be the case considering the explosion from when the saucer section hit it.
That cliffhanger, wow. I pray that they have the second half already written and aren't going to do like TNG and wait to write the conclusion. It was mentioned in the TNG Companion that the writers only wrote the first part of their season ending cliffhangers and waited until closer to filming to write and finalize the second part which doesn't seem like the best way to develop a strong resolution.
I love SNW so much. It's going to be an agonizing wait until the new season, probably 2025 at this point? Argh.
EDIT: I swear I didn't read any posts in this thread before posting my thoughts. I'm glad and amused to see we Trek fans had many of the same reactions!
I think we can excuse the fact that apparently everyone and their transporter clone had Pelia as their engineering professor. She's been at the academy for so long, I wouldn't be surprised if she dated Boothby on and off again or at least got him into gardening.
There's a long tradition in star trek where characters talk about one particular professor or class at the Academy and the other character always knows who the professor is.
The TNG writers held off on writing BOBW2 at least partially because Patrick Stewart was renegotiating his contract and they needed to know if he was staying on. I doubt that's a concern with SNW. The writers strike could be a problem, though.
Season 3 was originally scheduled to start production May 2nd, just before the start of the strike. It’s only the impending strike date that caused them to stand down on that.
This tells us that the script for the season premiere has been locked for some time.
Martin Quinn (Montgomery Scott) was reportedly born in Paisley, Scotland.
Dropping in to note that I’m feeling very smuggly self-satisfied that I decided not to completely abandon my alias when we migrated from the other place.
I guess that I must now become an unrepentant SNW Scotty stan. I look forward to seeing the character grow.
Yes. Born in Paisley (like David Tennant), and out of Scotland’s National Theatre Company, no less.
I agree with most people here. Great episode as long as you kinda ignore the fact that only Chapel survived in the saucer section and neither her nor Spock made any attempt to look for anyone else or even acknowledge it.
Rest of the episode I loved and I’m now just a bit sad we are going have to wait so long for the next series.
That being said, I absolutely support the strikes so I’m not complaining about the wait.
THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS AS I WATCH:
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NOOO, I DON'T WANT THIS TO END!
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Previously: The various stuff happened.
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Oh, hey, Cayuga captains log.
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Nice of them to have a colony modeled after an Earth town. Saves on budget.
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"SIGNAL LOST." In space, a dropped call can mean only one thing: Invasion.
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Oh, we're doing the Independence Day thing?
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Telling a Starfleet captain to just do reconnaissance is basically telling them to go weapons free.
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Nice little tinge of one of the TOS scores at the end of the cold open. Someone more geekier than I can probably place it.
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If you ever feel like you are useless in life, just remember that there is a "skip intro" button during a "Space, the Final Frontier" monologue.
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Is the "Gorn Protocol" a hand-cannon with with a diamond?
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She flies the ship!
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I'd like to imagine there is a deleted scene where they glue every piece of junk they have onto the shuttle.
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If they're going to do a "is someone still alive in the wreckage" storyline, they probably should have flip-flopped Batel and Chapel's spots, given that we obviously know she's going to live.
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They keep giving Jenna Mitchell lines! FREE MITCHELL! Give that actreess a cast credit, cowards!
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Ah, a good old fashioned beam into the sky.
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Oh, look, a Gornzooky!
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And... vaporized.
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More Gornzookies!
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Oh my god, it's young Scotty. Hopefully this means Keenser is there. I always loved Keenser and his ability to sit on things he isn't supposed to.
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Doesn't seem like Keenser is there :(
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Of course Scotty would engineer a way to save people. He truly is a miracle worker.
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Smashing a piece of space debris is a very... brilliant idea.
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Pelia continuing to harass Una for her poor academics in engineering.
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Why do I get the feeling that whatever plan Spock has to put the rockets on the hull will also allow him to check for survivors?
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Wow, imagine that, Chapel is alive! Imagine that! Whoever would have thought! (Seriously they should have flip-flopped her and Batel if they were going to do this)
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USE THE MORSE, CHRISTINE!
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Oh, now she grabs the spacesuit. Although I guess she didn't need it yet.
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WARNING: GORNZOOKY
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COMMAND CODE INVALID'
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That looks like a bigger Gorn. An adult? Or at least like a teenager.
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So incredibly Alien.
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"GET YOUR HANDS OFF HIM, YOU BITCH!"
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Oh shit, she's been impregnated with gornzookies. A very zombie movie trope.
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"There'll be time later." Before or after you get engaged to Dr. Korby?
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"We need to abort some Gornzookies."
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Yeah, Scotty would be a shitty student despite being brilliant.
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OH FUCK THE GORN KIDNAPPED THEM
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TO BE CONTINUED?!?!!?! Okay, who wants to drive to Hollywood and personally beat up some billionaires? I want this strike over NOW and I want a conclusion WITHIN A YEAR, A YEAR AND A HALF MAX!
I want to know what ST fan actually skips the openings. Especially SNW, LD, DS9... yes the French Horns rock.
Strangely LD seems to me to be THE MOST CATCHY Star Trek theme. Every time I hear it it's playing in my head for the next 24 hours. Not saying it's the best, it's great, but goddamn does it burrow its way into my brain
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Anyone else notice that the 2 people on the shuttle down who didn't have plot armor (Ortegas and La’an) were wearing red shirts?
There was at least one unnamed, previously unseen red shirt on the bridge as well. That was a hint there was going to be a body count. Of course, it could also mean that no one dies and the production staff are just playing into our expectations.
Ortegas was in the alternate future with Pike at the time of "A Quality of Mercy", which is not necessarily "plot armour" but if we assume the timeline still hasn't diverged — Pike not having had his accident yet — then it would seem reasonable she should get through to survive long enough to see the point of divergence and therefore survive long enough to be on the bridge with Pike when he meets the Romulans. However, that's all very timey-wimey and subject to a lot of "maybes" and "what-ifs".
A Quality of Mercy also showed Una in prison, and Those Old Scientists implied she's revered. Did sending that letter prevent Pike from recruiting her lawyer? Things are already not heading down the exact timeline we saw Ortegas alive in.
As I note in my annotations, I got very emotional whenever I heard them refer to Scotty as “Mr Scott”. Not sure why, it just sounded so right. When they said, “Thank you, Mr Scott,” I mentally added: “That’s something he’s going to get used to hearing over the years.”
The moment I heard Pike say he missed Batel and then praise Ortegas I immediately knew they were going to be placed in jeopardy and sure enough…
It was also immediately obvious when the Gorn youngling left Batel alone why it did so, so glad they didn’t string that out as some big mystery.
The colony design meant that filming exteriors was cheaper, I suppose. It’s the equivalent of building a gated community as a Ren Faire, though there’d definitely be a demand for it.
Wish they’d have given some hints to why that Gorn was on the Cayuga saucer, though. Why was it trying to access command level functions? Intel or something else? And how did it get there without Enterprise noticing or was it there before they arrived? Questions, questions…
At least Martin Quinn, who plays Scotty, is a Paisley boy like David Tennant and Steven Moffat, which means using his natural accent will be easier to make out, as the Paisley accent is less harsh than, say, a Glaswegian one. He’s a bit young for Scotty though, at 28. I’d always assumed Scotty was at least five to ten years older than Kirk.
Nice, fast moving action finale - but I echo the frustration at having this be a cliffhanger.
I swear if anything bad happens to Ortegas I will riot. That lady has surpassed Tom Paris as my favorite pilot and with all the banter with Pike I worry for her well-being.
I would like to know why the Gorn was there too, but the Gorn didn't notice Spock boarding and so there's no reason to believe Enterprise would have notice a Gorn boarding. It's also possible it was beamed over when the Cayuga was destroyed to find something or to access the ships systems.
Canon issues aside, I do dig the new Gorn and the adult ones look badass. I liked the cliffhanger too
A cliffhanger... I was hoping they wouldn't introduce those. I expect Sam and M'Benga will be the only one who makes it out alive... expecting to see Sulu and Chekov introduced soon.
Edit: Also the "They've been beamed up... by the gorn" and Pike standing there has the potential to be one of the most horrifying cliffhangers in Star Trek.
2nd Edit: Not Chekov....
Nevermind, forgot that Chekov wasn't introduced until Season 2... but Sulu is a possibility.
Chekov was on the Enterprise during s1. Continuity with TWOK requires it. Plus some of the star dates for s2 episodes that starred Chekov where set before the star date for Space Seed.
But yes at this point we are ~6 years before TOS so Chekov would be in his late teens.
That's true, TWOK requires him being on Enterprise for Season 1, or at least Space Seed. I wouldn't hold stardates too closely since they basically pulled them out of a hat and used whatever was pulled. But he would be in his late teens.
Also not Sulu if Sam Kirk is hanging around. Sulu was some kind of xenobiologist (xenobotanist?) in the opening episodes of TOS. The move to alpha shift helmsman came later.
Need to rewatch TOS then, memory's got a bit rusty. Thanks!
Uggggh, not a cliffhanger!!! Damn them! Ok, how long till season 03?
It may be a while, depending on when they settle the SAG-AFTRA/WGA strike.
On the whole a solid episode and the Scott appearance was very surprising and well done.
However why the hell is Christine the only survivor on the cayuga, it makes no sense at all.
Also the fucking cliffhanger is ridiculous
They did it again TOS purists
spoiler
you wanted a rubber suit, so they gave you a rubber suit.
I thought they did a great job with the casting this week. Had no idea he was going to show up.
I like that Pike avoids conflict whenever he can. And him not immediately knowing what to do at the end is so him. I'm confident that none of the cast will be killed off. Just unnamed red shirts.
They seem to be bookending the season with flashbacks to Pike's expedition to Rigel VII. His decision to withdraw there cost people their lives and led to Zak corrupting the local culture. Now he's back under fire, under seemingly unwinnable odds, and forced to make the call to leave people behind again.
