When the U.S.S. Farragut is ruthlessly attacked by powerful alien scavengers, Enterprise warps to the rescue. But when the scavenger ship scoops up Enterprise inside it and warps away, first officer James T. Kirk must take command of a skeleton crew aboard the Farragut, to rescue both Enterprise and an inhabited planet threatened by the aliens. Kirk faces a crisis of confidence, as those aboard the Enterprise face a boarding party working toward the rapid dismantling of their ship.
I've heard a few online grumblings from some Strange New Worlds viewers that disliked this episode, feeling it was more of a "backdoor pilot" for a "Kirk Year One" television series than a Strange New Worlds episode. Without conceding anything there, I'll just point out that the whole reason we have Strange New Worlds is because Pike, Spock, Number One, and the Enterprise were all woven into Star Trek: Discovery. Let's pay it forward, people!
I can hardly imagine a more skillfully constructed setup for Kirk's first adventure in the captain's chair. So far on Strange New Worlds, he's been shown as the cocky, self-confident person we all know him to be from the original series. It's great to see that it wasn't a smooth, bump-free road for that person to just one day sit in the captain's chair. Indeed, I think that showing Kirk question himself so deeply before coming out the other side with his self-confidence intact helps him earn all that bluster.
And who was there in Kirk's "darkest moment" to help him pick himself up and put himself back together? Spock, of course! -- along with many of the crew members who will one day form the core of Kirk's Enterprise crew: Uhura, Scotty, and Chapel. That's pitch perfect craftsmanship on the part of the writers, and I felt the cast met the moment. (So did composer Nami Melumad. In the very moment where Kirk regains his ingenuity and swagger, her score is skillfully evocative of James Horner's work in Star Trek II -- without copying it exactly.)
But the episode wasn't all about the adventures of the future Enterprise crew. Aboard the current Enterprise, the remaining characters engaged in a fun run-and-gun scenario to save themselves. The episode was a bit too packed to find all the individual character moments that Strange New Worlds usually hits; I would have liked a bit of lingering friction around Number One and the rebellious Ortegas having to work together this closely, and putting Dr. M'Benga on a joystick steering the ship was a choice only about giving Babs Olusanmokun something to do. Still, it all made for some fun action.
Yet one aspect that didn't play as well for me was the final reveal of the identity of these alien scavengers. (Uh, spoilers, I guess, if everything you've read so far didn't already qualify.) Clearly, the idea that these "alien" scavengers were in fact a splinter group of humans was meant to add some moral ambiguity to the story -- a chance for some soul-searching, as Pike and Kirk do in the final scene. I'm just not sure that moral complexity looms larger than the raft of logistical questions raised by the twist. One ship of humans (even if they were the "best of the best") somehow surpassed all of the rest of humanity over a period of 200 years, to become that technologically advanced? And also, so fundamentally incurious as to not attempt communications of any kind when they learn they're dealing with other humans? The original Star Trek had its share of implacable alien menaces throughout its run; I feel like leaving this adversary similarly mysterious might have served the story just fine.
Who knows if we really will ever get that "Kirk Year One" spin-off. If not, seeing this "first ride of the classic Enterprise crew" was pretty fun. I give "The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail" a B+.
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