1y ago

Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x09 "Subspace Rhapsody"

Written by Dana Horgan & Bill Wolkoff

Directed by Dermott Downs

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I love Star Trek, and I love musicals. These are two of my favorite things, and I never thought they should mix. When this was announced, I was very skeptical. I have to say, that they pulled it off, and it was AMAZING! The plot was a bit meh and definitely made to shoehorn in the musical, but the singing really did it for me. "How Would That Feel" (La'an's solo) and "Keep Us Connected" (Uhura's solo) were my favorite songs, and I have listened to them so much today. "How Would That Feel" definitely cemented La'an's place as my favorite character.
- I hated it, because I hate musicals, but I love that it happened. I loved watching it and hated every godamn second.
  Please... no more... but I'm glad this happened and I'm glad people that like musicals seemed to more or less have enjoyed it.
  Just... I'm begging.. no more.
  edit: it was incredibly charming. I still hate it. It's cannon and I wouldn't have it any other way, but I hate it. There is no way I am the only person like this.
  
  You're not alone. I hate musicals. Love that they can have fun like this in Trek, but please never again please because I'll have to watch that one too.
  Edit: Chapel's number was pretty cool though.
  
  There were some excellent bits, but I wish it didn't take up one of the ten-episode slots. They did loop in Kirk's kid, so that was an excellent plot beat, as was the TOS soundtrack. I didn't have a problem with the concept ("Wha if..."); Spock / Chapel / Pike / M'Benga had great tunes and didn't mind Ortegas and Klingons doing Tope 40 boy-band is 20 yrs of meme material. The finale was uneven.
  Outside of the individual elements and the "Strange New World" concept ... it was rough, especially knowing how good the show can be, and it took one of the spots for THAT goodness. Wish we had 15 episode seasons.
  
  I hear you on the "ten episode" bit. I HATE that that became standard. It's some real garbage and has hurt a lot of different shows. The Last of Us was generally amazing, but suffered from rushing a bit. Without spoilers, there's an episode where they expand on a minor gay character from the game, and the main characters aren't in it much. The episode is amazing, and also got a ton of hate because the internet is awful, but one very valid critique is that in spending the entire episode in that wonderful little vignette, you had to rush beats of other episodes. That could have been fixed by simply having more episodes in the season.
  Point is, somewhere shrinkflation hit our TV shows and I hate it lol.
  
  Right there with you on 10 episode seasons. I wish we could go back to 22 episode seasons.
- I agree. As a fellow musical lover (I'm posting from the intermission of a touring Broadway show) the writers clearly understand what the music in musicals is meant to represent. La'an's and Uhura's solo numbers definitely gave some emotional insight into both characters that I feel benefited the show beyond just being decent musical numbers.
  The autotune was painful in a few moments for certain actors but hey, they're not professional singers, and I would have loved a bigger dance number, but I know that's pushing it.
- Another musical theatre Star Trek fan who finally caught up with the episode. Obviously I loved it. The writers took their cue from "Once More With Feelings" and used the "very special episode" conceit to progress seasonal character arcs (as they did with "Those Old Scientists"). You could tell was the intent even from the "previously on" recap with a bunch of relationship tensions ready to be revealed through song. (The bunnies reference was a nice nod to the Buffy episode.)
  I knew Celia Rose Gooding could sing (although, sadly, she was off when I saw Jagged Little Pill on Broadway), so the actor whose vocal chops surprised me most was Christina Chong. I see from her wikipedia entry that she was actually in the Elton John musical Aida in Berlin, so that makes sense now.
  Maybe my favourite minor running gag was how the characters always heard and acknowledged the backing music - in dialogue or with just a glance. I could go on a pretentious detour on mimetic vs diegetic music, but won't.
  But I wasn't blind to some of the episode's flaws either. The biggest to me was that the songs lacked the craft and polish of really good musical theatre songs, with (for instance) many imperfect rhymes and awkward prosody (putting the stress on the wrong syl-LA-ble of a word). Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, a show that I loved, suffered from the same issue.
  A minor complaint is that I didn't think we need the rules of musical theatre to be so explicitly lampshaded by the characters, although La'an treating it as security (and personal, emotional) risk was cute - and in character.
  
  Christina Chong reportedly switched to auditioning for television roles after an injury sidelined her musical theatre career for a time. It doesn’t sound as though she ever expected the kind of role she has with La’an.
  She’s currently releasing a series of music videos for an album. The next one will come out at 4:00 pm EDT today August 7th. You can check out her other offerings on her YouTube channel. I’ve posted her release of two weeks ago to the Quark’s community here on this instance as it seems the better place to follow her singing career outside of the franchise.
  
  Oh god, "Once More With Feeling" was the first musical TV episode that stuck with me. So much passion in that episode and it brought to a head so many issues the characters had been dealing with up to that point. It still stands out as my favorite episode of the entire series.
  Guess I'm going to have to rewatch this episode, I missed the bunny reference!
  
  Or maybe midgets.

273 comments