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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds S02E10 - "Hegemony" Episode Discussion
What do you guys think about this episode? They really went and hit us with a cross season cliffhanger... I wasn't expecting one of those!
What do you guys think about this episode? They really went and hit us with a cross season cliffhanger... I wasn't expecting one of those!
I thought it was fun, but Chapel being the only survivor on that big ass ship was so convenient as to be completely unbelievable.
I’m not mad, but come on.
The Ready Room had interviews with the practical effects crew that built the Gorn. Worth a watch if you like seeing how creatures are made.
NuTrek is all like Deus ex machina the show, it seems.
I was more bothered that they didn't talk about looking for other survivors. Also that the gorn were still fooled by the artificially guided wreckage though they should have been suspicious after Spock killed the gorn rumanging through the wreckage and the gorn lost contact with it.
That's what got me as well. One convenient survivor, one convenient chance sighting on a tiny window across a giant saucer, and then somehow finding where that other person went and getting there at just that moment of need. And then the saucer starts moving way off its original trajectory, they expect us to believe the Gorn, a space faring race, just wouldn't recognize that?
All told though, I do enjoy SNW overall. Even the musical episode wasn't the worst thing ever.
I thought they'd have a chance to explain it away (maybe they still could), e.g. the transport materialized her just after the first blast hit her deck, doing the most damage, but then she was knocked out less seriously by falling debris. Eye-rolling levels of plot armor either way, but without justification it seemed especially lazy.
Oh, that’s my head canon, too. The other survivors definitely died when the saucer crashed into the planet.
I found the writing of this episode to be really uneven. While individual scenes were pretty good (the Spock/Chapel/Gorn fight scene, the shuttle descent to the planet) the whole episode was rife w/ "Oh come on!" moments where really lazy writing was used to set up the scenario:
Each one of these is an example of just really weak and lazy writing. And now we're going to have to wait at least a year for the resolution, and that's assuming it survives the writers' and actors' strike - oh come on!
EDIT: I completely forgot another really weak/lazy example -- out of the entire crew of the Enterprise, Spock is the only one who can perform this space walk to set the rockets, simply stating "No human can do this." Without even the barest elaboration to explain why this might be the case I found that to be really forced and kind of silly.
Riker had the balls to order Mr. Worf to fire before the cliffhanger.
That's a well-reasoned argument and pretty persuasive. While I'm enjoying the show quite a bit, I haven't given Pike (or any of the crew really) any sort of character analysis beyond the most cursory -- my reaction to that scene was really more of a gut-level "that kind of hesitancy is selected out of Starfleet captains" snap judgment that gave it a sour note to me. I've always seen decisiveness as one of the key traits of being a commander, fictional or not, and the Star Trek series that I've watched (TOS and NG primarily) has always exemplified that trait. But you make a good case that Pike may be deficient in that particular characteristic, and was subject to a lot of extenuating circumstances on top of that.
You and others have made the case that Pike's not a wartime commander, but I have to wonder: what was he doing during the Klingon war? He was certainly coming up through the ranks while it was going on; it wasn't that long ago, he has several crewmembers much younger than he is who participated. I don't recall they ever mention it, but I find it hard to imagine he was just a desk-jockey somewhere during the war but now he's commander of the fleet flagship (although I concede it's possible that was the case). If he was stationed on a ship even as a junior officer that kind of indecision would've gotten people killed and also killed his advancement.
The Klingon War was fairly short (season 1 of Discovery) and season 2 of Discovery explains that the Enterprise was on a deep space 5 year mission. They didn’t make it back before the war ended.
Edit: Actually, here’s a better and lengthier answer https://comicbook.com/startrek/amp/news/star-trek-discovery-where-was-enterprise-during-season-1/
At least they didn't end up in a nebula. :-)
I don't think there has been an episode yet where Pike performed well in a fight or a battle.
It was a good one! Who knows how long it will be until we get a wrap up with the strikes, but I agree that it’s wonderful to have great Star Trek again! I was also glad to see a ScreenCrush Easter egg breakdown on the episode, since they haven’t been covering the show - great YouTube channel if you never checked it out.
I'm not a fan of ending the season with a two part episode.
Isn't this a staple of classic Star Trek? Some of the most famous TNG episodes were end-season cliffhangers.
I can only recall 1 two part episode from Star Trek TOS ( The Original Series ).
That was when they cut up the pilot episode ( Captain Christopher Pike ) and made it into a kidnapping/trial drama. I do not know if it was done at the end of the season
It was absolutely a thing in '90s trek, starting with TNG. The pilot episode was a two parter. Season 2 ended with The Best of Both Worlds, part I which is one of the best and most famous episodes of the entire franchise.
but you asked about "classic Star Trek"
'90s Trek is classic Trek. TNG premiered 35 years ago. ENT ended almost 20 years ago. At this point, anything older than the 2009 reboot is "Classic Trek". I even invoked TNG in my original comment, so there should have been no ambiguity.
No, it is not. :-)
The original series is classic Star Trek
Fwiw I'm the same with blood and gore. Is this episode gruesome? I skipped the Gorns episode in S1 because they said it was nasty.
Oh I'd forgotten about the Icheb thing in Picard. So unnecessary. Anyway thanks for the imdb style parental guide rundown, appreciate it.
I liked the episode, although I'm not really keen on the 2 part aspect. I wanted to watch lower decks, but the crossover episode ensured that I never will, and I refuse to watch the musical episode, I just read a few synopsis articles. There's just not enough gold pressed latinum in the galaxy to convince me to.
I am not super hopeful for SNW after this season sadly, but will watch anyway. I'd rather see more Discovery, to be honest.
Thank you for your lengthy perspective, friend! I keep hearing reasons to give it a shot, like your suggestion.
I'll give the first season a try.
Thanks again!
Again, thank you! I'll give it a ln honest chance!
No problem!
I don’t know if the crossover episode is fully representative of Lower Decks. There’s a lot more to the crew of the Cerritos than just Boimler and Mariner. I think it is worth giving the show a chance on its own merits.
Thank you for your comment. Perhaps I'll watch a few episodes and get a better idea.
I never heard of Lower Decks until the crossover episode and now I will never watch it.
I know that the cartoon characters who crossed over were supposed to be irritating, but the writers & actors did too good of a job of it for me. BLECH.
I count that episode and the fairytale episode from season 1 as the 2 worst SNW episodes. Jump the shark level quality.
I'm glad I'm not the only one!
I'm not at all upset that people liked it, but I only see praise for it online and that scares me for the future of Star Trek.
I really hope season 3 is better!
There are some good bit where I see a lot of potential for the show that is squandered.
I too loathed the crossover episode and was suspicious I would hate the musical episode. It wasn't that bad.
I know that the writers and producers were motivated by saving a few pennies, but how likely is it that of all of the architectural styles that settlers 2-3 centuries from now would choose American midwestern small town in particular?
The settlers appeared to be federation citizens. The story could have explained why they would be targets. The federation was already extending them support, otherwise there wouldn't have been an episode.
This was a pretty weak ending for me. There were good parts, but overall weak.
The whole concept is fantastic. Gorn take a planet forcefully, there's some loved ones on the surface, the Enterprise has some decisions to make that could effect whether the whole Federation goes to war. That's amazing, love everything about the setup.
But... they just don't do anything with it? Like, everyone is cool with justgoing down to the planet and risking war with the Gorn? Even the characters who know first hand that the Federation stands no chance against them in an open conflict, who have no personal stakes on saving the survivors who they don't know exist, see no problem with this away mission? Of course the crew had to go down there, but the justification was weak. I really do think Pike has to be one of the worst Starfleet captains because some of his decisions are beyond irresponsible.
This action does result in even more senior officers being captured by the Gorn, so maybe that will lead to some consequences or maybe a wising-up of Pike, but the rest of the series doesn't give me too much hope for that.
I also found the town strange too, why build a colony like a 20th century small southern town? I find it really strange that anyone would want that, or would want to go through the trouble to do that. Almost felt like they had a leftover set that they decided to use to save on costs? If it's a reference I'm not getting someone can point that out to me.
I did really love Scotty's introduction, I think Martin Quinn has a ton of charisma and really nails the attitude of Scotty, excited to see more of him going forward. Especially if he's going to be interacting more with Carol Kane's character who was just criminally underused for the entire season, they could have some great chemistry going forward.
The Gorn are treated pretty weird, I'm not sure I fully understand their lore. Someone at some point called them "just monsters," but they obviously have an understanding of how to use starships, spacesuits, communication and basic diplomacy since they told the Federation of their new line that shall not be crossed. So knowing all that it just feels strange that when killing Gorn children they're just like "well these new guns work great." Then again the Gorn are just killing everyone on the planet indiscriminately so that might not be totally unjustified.
But yeah, the rest of the episode was just, meh. It was a lot of boring action that was pretty to look at, but didn't have much substance behind it which is the biggest problem I had with the Abrams films. For me the season has been 20% Great, 20% awful, and 60% just alright, with a lot of those (in my opinion) great episodes appearing earlier in the season. It's unfortunate that the season ended on a low note that I'm unsure I'll even remember come the next season, but the season was good enough overall to have me keep watching.