Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 7

Star Trek Strange New Worlds

Season 4 Reaction: Episode 7

Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass

Captain Pike waked up in sickbay.  While checking him for a concussion M'Benga says he was in a shuttle accident.  The last thing Pike remembers is hosting a captain's table, that event according to M'Benga was 2 weeks ago.  M'Benga says he has amnesia.  Spock is also injured and in a coma.  M'Benga relieves Pike of duty.  In Pike's quarters he meets with Dr. Chivers, the ship's counsellor (wearing a blue outfit of similar style and color to those worn by Deanna Troi in TNG).  It turn out that this is all being orchestrated by Trelane (see "Wedding Bell Blues").  Trelane has the ship and crew stuck in his "soap opera world".  The crew speak in weird patterns with strange, dramatic pauses and act overly melodramatically.  Onboard a shuttle La'an is returning to the enterprise with a heart donor for Spock-his brother Sybok (also played by Ethan Peck).  Pike notices everyone acting strangely.  Uhura is told that she is Pike's daughter.  Pike rejects the idea but s interrupted by Trelane.  He reveals himself to Pike and says that he is running an experiment on the crew-he has turned the Enterprise and its crew into a soap opera.  Pike is not amused and demands that Trelane leave.  After some terse words Trelane leaves.  Pike realizes that the only way out of this is through.  He tries to get through to Uhura, but she doesn't believe him and gets angry.  On the shuttle La'an tries to strongarm Sybok, Sybok gets her phaser and turns it on her.  Sybok challenges her to a game of Kal-toh.  La'an wins the game but Sybok reneges on the deal and dries to get La'an to run away with him to a V'tosh katur colony.  After a dramatic argument between Sybok and La'an Sybok orders the computer to set a course to the colony.  Sybok later changes his mind and changes the shuttles course for the Enterprise.  We see several highly dramatic (and unrealistic) exchanges between crewmembers, M'Benga is freaking out worrying that he can't do the medical procedure to save Spock.  Uhura continues to have daddy issues after the revelation that Pike is her father.  Later in sickbay Chapel and M'Benga perform the heart transplant.  La'an observes.  Suddenly thing take a turn for the worse.  In the galley pike tries again to get through to the ship's counsellor.  He decides to imagine Juliet, his illusory daughter with Batel in an imagined future ("New Lives and New Civilizations").  This makes Trelane think that Juliet was real.  Trelane ends his test, getting a B+ grade from his Q (?) proctor.  The Enterprise and it's crew are released from the "soap opera spell".  The shuttle accident, Pike's amnesia, Spock's injury and heart transplant, none of that was real.  The crew however remember everything and have to come to terms with it.  The crew discuss what happened over drinks in the galley.  In sickbay Spock and La'an discuss Sybok.  La'an is still having trouble with the end of their relationship.  In his quarters, Pike talks with the ship's counsellor about losing Marie Batel.  

Honestly I'm not any more a fan of this episode than I was of season 3's Trelane episode.  Not being a soap opera fan the episode doesn't do much for me in that regard.  Not sure why we need to bring Trelane back at this point.  The sound effect when Trelane appears in Pike's quarters is the same sound from TOS "The Squire of Gothos".  Nice touch.  The Kal-toh game is a sneaky Voyager reference.  Sybok's lines about a "secret pain" are word for word from Star Trek V.  The idea of the ship's counselor this early in the franchise timeline is definitely...interesting.  That said it works in the episode's context.  Overall, this episode is ok, but doesn't add much to the series.   The after credit sequence with the crew names and pictures and Trelane's ad were cute but unneccesary.