Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you're curious about a nerd's views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of this episodes! I've watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!
Neli, my friend I'm watchin' this with, and I had already seen SNW.... but we wanted to rewatch it so we're ready for season 2, plus we're watching it with my community. I never posted my reviews of SNW here, so this will be my slightly updated takes! Let's go!
Strange New Worlds - SNW
8.5/10
So I've never watched Discovery. All you need to know is Pike knows he's gonna die and saw it happening and is suffering from PTSD. But, the most important thing about Pike?
He's hot as fuck.
Unfortunately they shave the beard soon.
So, welcome to SNW. This is the intro episode, which shows you all the characters and vibes of the series, so it's usually just kinda... okay. Usually a bit rushed. This episode is good tho! Probably the best Star Trek first episode ever?
So we got Pike. He's the best captain Star Trek has ever seen. I'll get into how much I love him later.
We also got Spock. We get an intro to him with T'pring, his fiance. I already know how THAT ends, but this episode does well of making you not like her immediately. Spock himself is good. The new Spock actor's voice is a bit too deep and gravelly? The episode maybe tries too hard to set up a romance with him and T'Pring, that's also strained cause Spock is too busy "galavanting" in a space ship and not fucking her brains out.
We're on the Enterprise! Our NEW characters are her, too: We got La'an, who I have.... mixed emotions about. I think she's done well, very well, but I do not like watching her lol I just don't like her as a character, she is INTENTIONALLY kind of unlikable, even though you 100% get it.
Then we got Ortegas, who barely does anything here but she is MY WIFE, NELI, NOT YOUR'S, GET WIFE SNIPED.
And finally Uhura is here too :D The "prodigy"! It's nice to see Uhura starting out, that's a great connection to TOS.
Anyways plot times. They need to send the Enterprise out early to save Number One, who we will meet later. Pike is NOT happy about it, because again, he is suffering from PTSD. He EXPERIENCED his death, through magical time displacement bullshit. It's done very seriously and very well. The acting is quite good! Spock has to be ship counselor cause Troi isn't born yet, and gives a good pep talk to the cap'n.
Una, or Number One as I will only call her, was sent to this planet to look and see what's up. They have a warp drive, but are using 21st century tech. There's political turmoil, and they gotta figure out where Number One went
HEY LOOK IT'S M'BENGA AND CHAPEL! M'Benga was in two episodes of TOS, Chapel was a mauve shirt. I love how this series does a nice contrast of old and new. Everything old is either kept intact in a respectful way with a bit of new to keep it interesting, or completely reworked. Chapel had no personality except that she wanted in Spock's pants. THIS Chapel is a punk mother fucker and the ship's TF specialist, which she immediately puts into action by TFing the crew into aliens so they can infiltrate. M'Benga was NOTHING in TOS, so here he's a sweet older Doctor, serious but comforting. I love him.
Okay, so something about SNW: it's got that classic Trek vibe of serious, tense, and also funny. So many fun scenes? First, funny: An alien escapes medbay and is running the enterprise afraid. They have a code for this situation. He runs into the turbolift right into Uhura who's like "Hi! :D" and calms him down by talking about football. Then, tense. They need to teleport an eyesalve DIRECTLY onto Spock's eyes. What the fuck. "Kyle, we need you to do that, can you?" "Uh, no? Teleporters can't do that?" "Hey, this is La'an. Make them do that." EVEN WHEN TENSE IT'S FUN.
Hey look, it's Number One! She's cool :D She was here to investigate, turns out they were here to figure out why they were building warp tech bombs. The aliens saw a big battle from Discovery in their telescopes, and used them to reverse engineer warp tech bombs so that they could beat the other factions on the planet. They were not ready for first content, or warp. But Pike feels remorse. Him and his people would be the reason these people die in nuclear hellfire... Time to fix it by literally going "fuck the prime directive". Yet more reasons Pike is the BEST STAR TREK CAPTAIN.
So he intentionally gets kidnapped and tries to communicate with them by explaining that Earth was once in this situation too. Their leader is like "WE NEED TO KILL THE DEPLORABLES" "Uh... no?" "Fuck you, we'll kill people anyway" "Alright. Time to light up the sky." And then the Enterprise comes down like "Hi I can kill you :D"
Hey look it's a Jan 6 clip. When did Star Trek become so woke?
I like this episode's themes about surprise being the last thing people feel right before they die. That people think they'll make it out no matter what and don't think through their actions. Cause hey, that fits through with what Pike is going through :D
Anyways all's well that ends well in the end. This episode is good. Not AMAZING obviously, sometimes a bit heavy handed and eye-rolly, but it introduces everyone and the vibe quite well. Serious, hard hitting, but friendly and optimistic amongst dark times. And Pike REALLY carries this episode. He's perfect.
Hey look, it's Brian David Gilbert :D This is the final character introduced this episode, a bit of a Mauve Shirt, and is Kirk's brother, George Kirk! He's cool =w=
Children of the Comet - SNW
9/10
UHURA EPISODE TIME!
This episode starts with fun character moments, which this series SHINES with! Ortegas hazes poor Uhura by telling her a dinner at the Captain's room is a dress uniform. Pyke sees it and just laughs. Another reason I like Pike. I can't see any other Trek captain having a comfy BBQ with his crew.
IT'S. MY. BOY! OVER THER EON THE LEFT. IT'S HEMMER! I LOVE HEMMER! He's a blind Andorian, and he's a curmudgunny old fuck. I absolutely adore him. He basically adopts Uhura after teasing her a bit.
So this episode is about Uhura not knowing if she REALLY wants to be here, or belongs. By the end, we'll find out. The crew finds a comet that's gonna slam into a planet and kill everyone. So they work to try and divert it and oh, the comet has SHIELDS. There's no life there, but some kind of structure.
I like the space suits. If this was TOS, this comet would have an atmosphere for no fucking reason. If it was TAS they'd just have a shimmer around them to denote force fields. Instead we get actual EFFORT.
Spock, La'an, Uhura, and Kirk beam on down to the Comet, I love Kirk in this episode, he's kinda a goofy funloving dude. Like it gets them into shit, he's like "OH COOL ALIEN EGG" and fucks with it without any kind of testing and it basically gets him almost killed as the egg releases an energy blast.
Aaaand shit gets worse. These big bois, called The Shepards (the episode mocks that name) are like "Yo, what's up. Uh we're gonna blow you the fuck up if you do anything else to that comet okay? <3" This series does tension well, AND tying it into character progression! Poor Uhura is in WAY over her head as things keep ramping up!
Wow, Star Trek says the Shepards are zealots and that religious extremism is bad? I can't believe Star Trek has gotten so woke.
I like Spock trying to treat Uhura as careful as he can to help stop her from having a fucking panic attack. She's ALL he has as hope to figure out the comet, it's a linguistics problem. He's bad at it, he's bad at pep talks, but he's TRYING and is being as nice as a Vulcan can. Meanwhile La'an keeps glaring and treating her like garbage.
Uhura discovers, through music and sounds, that she can control the comet, which does wonders for that whole "do I really belong here" plot point, doesn't it? BTW, this episode is very pretty. I didn't mention this yet, but I love SNW's aesthetic style. It modernizes the styles of TOS, while not like... futurizing it? It's great. And everything in the comet is gorgeous too.
Trek has never been 100% about Awesome Space Battles but when it happens, it's good. They square off with the Shepards, and Ortegas gets to shine which is neat. Also I love the enemy ship design it's REAL sick?
I love when captains do Exact Words, and Pike is good at it. "We surrender. We promise we will not touch the comet again." So Spock goes out and moves it by heating it up but NOT touching it. Cute. And we get a Spock laugh. Also cute.
Good episode! The final end is kinda cute (the comet being mystical and knowing its own future) but a little goofy. It all ties in well with Uhura though, which I love. It keeps trying to go back to Pike seeing the future, though, which is maybe a little too much too fast ngl. And La'an is mostly annoying. Anyways, good episode.
Ghosts of Illyria - SNW
9.5/10
A Number One episode! Also, as I call it, the "moth" episode.
In this episode, they're at a planet where some storms are getting so bad that it strands Spock and Pike on the planet. This planet belonged to The Illyrians, a Humanoid species that are considered outcasts by the Federation because of how much they seem to just loooove tampering with their own genes. Genetic tampering is outlawed in the Federation, which is funny cause it was NOT in TOS, or early TNG, but was by DS9. So let's just... ignore all that stuff and bridge that gap.
Meanwhile, back on the Enterprise, everyone is turning into moths. This one dude is rubbing up against the light, needing to feel it on his skin and Ortegas is like "look dude you can be as horny as you want but like, in your room???" It also hits Una, who gets all horny for the light, and then... stops. And she lies to everyone going "oh no I've had no reactions :)". This weird disease seems to lower Vitamin D, and even though Una WAS being all mothlike, she has normal vitamin D! Oooooh interesting~
It IMMEDIATELY makes you feel like Una is being sussy. Which is neat~
Some lore drops: La'an's ancestor was Kahn! :o fancy. Also, they say the Eugenics Wars is the main reason why genetic tampering is outlawed, which is good lore. Anyways, back on the colony, Spock determines that the Illyrians were attempting to revert their genetic engineering so that they could join the Federation. And then FIRE DRAGON MOTHS ATTACK!
M'Benga is not happy with Hemmer messing around with his medical transporter :o Huh! I'm sure that won't be important later on! They determine that the disease travels on light! Clever virus, clever and fun idea! Makes sense. The disease makes you crave light, which helps spread the virus, cute.
WILD SCENE. Hemmer's like "I don't want a light, I WANT THE LIGHT" and transports A PIECE OF THE PLANETS CORE INTO THE TRANSPORTER ROOM. Everyone on the Enterprise is dropping like flies, or like moths, y'know, and Una is the ONLY one left. I really love Trek's quarantine episodes.
Oh no, the Fire Moth People made it into where Spock and Pike were hiding! But WAIT! They're here to PROTECT them from the ion storm! :o SUCH a Trek thing to happen, they were the good guys :D The fire moths huddle around them to save them from the storm, just as it breaks in through the windows! Turns out they're the colonists. This is KINDA easy to see coming but I still like it a lot.
WOAH UNA IS AN ILLYRIAN! NO WAY :O This is a great twist, I'm ngl, and it makes it SO compelling. Chapel and M'Benga don't give a shit, she's coming out with it cause she wants to help, but nope. She can't. But you know who is NOT happy about this? La'an, who wakes up and immediately tries to blow up the fucking warp core. Have I mentioned I'm.... not a fan of La'an? Sure yeah, okay, your great grandpa was a genetically engineered super soldier who did war crimes. Maybe don't take it out on your friend? This isn't even daddy issues. She got bullied for it at school. It's like hating all people who eat weinerschnitzel cause your classmates in school mocked you for being German. But again... I GET IT. Plus we see Una beat the shit out of her, with a sick fight scene.
In the end, things work out in the end. Something called Chimeric antibodies save the day. It's medical technobabble, whatever. We get some more stuff afterwards, this episode kinda just keeps going? Lots of good stuff with Pike and the Illyrians, and also stuff building up M'Benga who's hiding his daughter in the medical transporter's biofilter, which will be important later, and is quite good. All of the ending of this episode (and a LOT of the series in fact) is about breaking laws to protect those we care about, which I like.
So, I DID give this episode a 10/10 originally. I don't think it's... QUITE there, actually. The La'an stuff really does hold it back for me. "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME? WHY DID YOU HIDE IT?" Mother fucker SHE'S ILLEGAL. It'd be like going "Why did you hide you were gay from me for YEARS? Y'know, while we're in a place that'd kill you for being gay and I've said how much I hate gay people for YEARS!" How EVERYONE ELSE handles it is good, ESPECIALLY Pike who's like "Who gives a shit????" And I agree. That just makes me love Pike more. He's willing to not only shelter her but accept them coming after HIM if they go after her. THAT'S good, THAT'S how you handle this. Not like La'an, jfc.
Again. Don't like La'an, and I think I like her less this second time around. But literally everything else is perfect in this episode. And omfg, those final lines. "What if I WASN'T one of the good ones? Computer, delete this log entry." Fucking hell. I WANT TO GIVE THIS EPISODE A 10. AAAGH. It's REALLY fucking close you have no idea.
Memento Mori - SNW
9/10
OH BOY A LA'AN EPISODE MY FUCKING FAVORITE.
It's Redshirt Rememberance Day :D And at the same time, Uhura is working under Hemmer today! They have such a good report.
Anyways, Redshirt Rememberance Day, everyone wears a badge to show they care about those who've passed. La'an refuses to. She doesn't like thinking about the past or caring about dead people cause PTSD! And when Una is like "Uh maybe therapy?" she's like "NO I WON'T LET SOME SHRINK FUCK WITH MY HEAD" which is like hmmnggrr, hello La'an, you fucking Scientologist, you.
Anyways they find out some planet's inhabitants all disappeared, kidnapped by... something and DRAGGED to the center of the colony. At the same time, a ship of injured colonists beg for the Enterprise to save them. Pretty heavy. No one knows who attacked, except La'an, who knows exactly who it is.
GORN TIME, BABY! REMEMBER THIS FUCKER?
HE'S FUCKING TERRIFYING NOW.
The Gorn uses the Colonists as bait, and break out of cloak to attack just as La'an figures out what's going on. The thing with the Gorn, is that they're very secretive and VERY aggressive. No one's seen em, really, cause they just fucking kill you. La'an only got away cause she was VERY lucky.
This episode has a GREAT concept but also some of the PTSD stuff is a little heavy handed. It's not that Trek shouldn't handle these topics, and they aren't handled POORLY. Actually quite well. But the premise is way better. So, in order to try to escape the Gorn, the Enterprise must hide in a fucking brown dwarf, but will lose all systems. Optics, medical, everything. 9 dead. Hemmer is injured and the Ship is going to explode soon. It's HEAVY.
Ahhh, La'an. "The enemy doesn't care about my feelings, captain. So I don't have any" "Uhhhh...huh." Is that why you keep hallucinating a dead dude La'an?
Anyways, the concept... this is The Submarine episode. They're blind, but they can detect changes in the cloud, like pulses. They can turn it into SONAR. THIS IS SO COOL, and SO fucking tense, as they try to outwit the Gorn. They're on empty, they have ONE torpedo. Which they won't fire. They'll DROP it on them.
They blow up a Gorn ship... A. Gorn ship. More come in, now knowing about where they are. So they flee, by diving deeper. Dive, dive, dive. It really is The Submarine episode. The ship creaks. The lower decks begin to buckle. There are people down there still trying to evacuate. Pike seals the bulkheads, saving the enterprise, and literally killing someone. It's fucking HEAVY.
"We can take bets on when septic shock sets in. I hear it's like giving birth out your mouth." "...who says that?!" "Me?" Oh Chapel. You're so good. You may think these scenes have NO right to be next to each other, but some levity is good, and very Trek.
THEY'RE DOING A SUICIDE MISSION IN THE GALILEO, TAKE A DRINK!
To try and work through her PTSD and drama, it's time to MIND MELD! Our first Mind Meld! Spock is like "Uhhh this isn't a shortcut for therapy?" but it's all the chance they have here, La'an needs to remember everything about the Gorn to better counteract them. Once again, Spock has to be the ship Counselor. Can we hire one of them already why did it take us a hundred years?? Through Mind Meld we see La'an's brother teaching her about the lights they use to communicate, and also we see him fucking die. RIP big bro.
La'an and Spock bond over dead siblings, how... sweet? Cute???? Anyways, La'an can speak Gorn now, and uses it to blow some the fuck up. Things are turning around! Also we get some of the first big Hemmer lore and character building. He's an Aenar, and is VERY pacifist. But he's still in this basically military organization. Pacifism is not passivity. He will not fight or hurt anyone, but he will work for Starfleet's ideals. GOD I love Hemmer, he's perfect.
This episode is so many amazing character moments. Just one after another, with everyone having a chance to shine. Hemmer. Ortegas. Chapel DOING SEWING ON PEOPLE. Even La'an!!
In the end, they surf a black hole and eject the cargo bay and use the resulting explosion to play dead. Everyone looks ROUGH, but they made it out. This episode is fucking TENSE, and SCARY. The PTSD stuff was done better than I EVER would have expected, and it feels like over all GOOD La'an character growth, as at first she didn't care about honoring the dead, and by the end, she's with the others, honoring those who gave their lives in this episode. I gave this episode a 7.5 before. It's grown on me a lot.
THOUGHTS
The first two episodes didn't change, in terms of my opinions. The second two ABSOLUTELY did, one for the slight less, one much for the better. I'm excited to see how I feel about the others~ We'll be watching these over the next week or two to catch up, so, keep an eye for these!
