Episode Analysis | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x01 “The Broken Circle”
This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Strange New Worlds 2x01 The Broken Circle.
Now that we've had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.
I am whelmed. I liked everything about it except for what was ostensibly the "main event."
Putting Spock in command? Interesting choice, I continue to enjoy Peck's portrayal as younger, less confident Spock. Love Pelia. Can't wait to see more of her. Love that we're back to a more traditional Klingon appearance. Love the updated D-7. Good use of La'an, interesting to see a planet which is firmly stuck in the wake of the Klingon war.
But then we get to the main event: Chapel and M'Benga are in a jam. And so they just... take drugs and fistfight Klingons. Yawn. This is the head doctor and the head nurse we're talking about here, and you're telling me there wasn't a more scientific or medically oriented solution? I mean sure, I guess doing some stims counts as vaguely "medical," but that's not really what I mean. It would have been interesting to see them exploit Klingon biology or Federation medical tech in a more thoughtful fashion, rather than just go bonk heads.
But, eh, that's a minor blemish on what was otherwise a solid hour of Trek. I do think it's interesting that they've managed to draw out Una's trial arc into three episodes now... hopefully it's just three? There are Strange New Worlds out there to visit.
This is a nitpick but it kind of annoys me that they had Ortegas reverse the pitch and yaw of the ship instead of the roll and yaw.
On an atmospheric aircraft, you normally turn by rolling right or left, and then possibly pulling upward to tighten the turn. These controls do not make sense in space, but they are so ingrained to pilots that there are lots of debates on Space Sim forums about if your joystick should be mapped to roll or yaw.
And then Ortegas dodges the incoming array of torpedoes by rolling the Enterprise. She seems able to do so quickly. One of the only other times we see a ship engage in a deliberate roll and we get to see the pilot input controls is when the Enterprise-D is escaping the Dyson Sphere. Ensign Sariel Rager quietly and without orders taps in a command and the Enterprise-D (a much flatter ship than the Constitution class) rolls sideways to fit.
Whatever, the setup is that she's a hot hand who wants custom controls, and the payoff is that she flies the Enterprise carefully and well. But it would have been nice to see the maneuver we saw on screen be the one that was set up.
As an aside, the ability to dodge a torpedo is also relatively rare in the show's history, I am willing to assume that their adversaries didn't really understand the ship or how to properly lock on weapons. The Enterprise's current close-body shield configuration was likely instrumental in allowing the dodge, and probably a necessity to navigate an asteroid field.
l am happy that La’an seems to have some sort of characterization other than “hates the gorn and is angry”. There is potential for her to be interesting but she was downright forgettable to me in season 1.
I am confused by the choice to have the Klingons look like the redesign. This is TOS era so surely they should look like TOS era Klingons, no?
It goes without saying I agree with others about M’Benga and Chapel just taking drugs and fighting Klingons. We can find ways to justify it and make it make sense but it feels out of place.
I also just… don’t like Chapels character. It doesn’t really make sense to me that half the time the Nurse is doing the things the doctor would normally be doing but also is a kick ass bad ass action star. If anything the way they’re portraying Chapel should be how La’an is portrayed.
Honestly now that I type that out, I’m thinking about how in TOS Chapel is just a small quiet side character. If you’re gonna have Chapel in SNW maybe it would make more sense for HER to be the one emotionally scarred by the Gorn, and her character arc over the course of the show being a lot about her mental and emotional recovery. Going from being totally reclusive but accepted into starfleet medical for being competent to coming into her own and finding her strengths.
I think the premise is interesting. Klingons are interesting. Spock in command is interesting. M'benga and Chapel fist fighting Klingons? God save us all. And then to face no consequence. It's a shame such an interesting premise is muddied with all of the nonsense.
Why would they face consequences?
Given the history of dangerous substances radically changing a person's physiology in Star Trek, they'll be fine. People turn into completely different species and then return to normal without any scarring, or indeed even a hair out of place.
I wish there was some time given to recovery from such extreme bodily trauma, but the precedent has been long established that you just spend a minute in sickbay, maybe get a hypospray, and you're back on duty in no time.
From what I understand based on what they said in BTS stuff, the fight was partly inspired by the fact that Babs Olusanmokun is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Why they had to have him be juiced-up fighting Klingons, I don't know. Lord knows he could have been fighting humans without steroids.
I think the reason was simply that klingons (like vulcans) are usually depicted as significantly stronger than humans on a baseline, which is why we usually deal with them with weapons rather than fist fights. That being said, I think it was an answer looking for a question, and agree it wasn't entirely necessary for the plot.
Strange New Worlds continues to fit the Trek mold for me, and I am into it!
There were some elements of the story I found a little odd. I appreciate the nod to Star Trek III with Spock stealing the Enterprise, but it felt a little out of character for him
I think the new Klingon design is quite good, and holy cow the practical effects for them are incredible! Very reminiscent of 90s Trek Klingons with a hint of the look of Discovery Klingons. I wonder if we’ll see a canon explanation for why the TOS klingons largely don’t have the ridges beyond Worf’s “we don’t talk about it”
Pelia! Oh man I am so stoked to see more of her. What a cool character. I wish they had introduced her a little earlier, so we would already know she’s the chief inspector when she saunters onto the bridge, but I loved how she saw through their ruse instantly, and then invited herself to join their mission. Such a badass
I was disappointed in the season opener. The story was silly and incoherent, and to be honest it reminds me of the worst elements of Discovery.
I don't begrudge them deferring dealing with the Una situation as that is likely (hopefully) going to be strongly character driven episode.
But the Embenga/Chapel subplot was by far the worst part of the whole episode. Exploring the trauma of the Klingon War is actually an intriguing idea, and even the idea of Starfleet medical being weaponised is intriguing but instead we got Embenga and Chapel injecting up and becoming rediculous super soldiers which has zero link to anything we've ever had from their backstories. Then we had 10 minutes of tedious kung fu fighting which is a common trope of Discovery; it's lazy writing and just fills screen time with pointless violence. It is exactly the opposite of what makes SNW so refreshing. I hope to god this stupidity is a one off. If you are going to shoehorn in a pointless action sequence, why on earth would you pick Embenga and Chapel for that? And then the crazy space walk? It was ludicrous.
Other elements were ok but the overall episode felt out of place with what SNW did in series 1. I really hope they have not decided the show needs more "action" because they will be making the same mistakes as Discovery if they do that. SNW series 1 was extremely well recieved because it was character and plot driven; each episode was stand alone but the characters plots extended across the season.
I'd give this episode 5/10 to be honest.
*M'benga.