Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 4

Star Trek Strange New Worlds
Season 4 Reaction: Episode 4

A Case of Chiaroscuro

The episode is entirely in black and white.  Interesting.  The black and white is immediately explained as part of the plot and not just a gimmick. Una leads a mission to retrieve a malfunctioning probe from inside Klingon space.  The shuttle is nearly detected by the Klingons and is forced to land on a nearby planet to hide.  They find the planet under Klingon occupation.  Much of the episode is very TOS-esque: the crew incognito on a "parallel earth" planet, the planet modelled after a specific Earth region or period (in this case 1940s-esque movie noir), the crew in native/period attire among the natives, and the planet affected by outside influence.  The message at the end-that in life things are not black and white, but many shades of grey is an interesting, vey TOS introspective look at humanity, nicely set against the episode being completely in black and white.  Demore Barnes  does a decent job as Kor, the Klingon commander originally portrayed by the late Jon Colicos in TOS and DS9.  The writing for Kor's dialog feels very much like that of Jon Colicos.  Interestingly, Kor has forehead ridges which contradicts his appearance in TOS vs DS9.  The twin storylines (Una, M'Benga and Uhura on the planet and the mystery on the Enterprise) are both quite engaging.  Hearing the Klingon anthem song from DS9's "Way of the Warrior" was a fun throwback.  Overall, this was a fun, interesting episode with a lot of classic trek notes.