Strange New Worlds: Ghosts of Illyria

As season one of Stat Trek: Strange New Worlds continues, the writers continue to spotlight different characters with each new episode. Most recently, "Ghosts of Illyria" focused on Number One, Una Chin-Riley.

The Enterprise explores a colony seemingly abandoned by the Illyrians, aliens who explored genetic modification (forbidden within the Federation). As an ion storm traps Pike and Spock on the planet, a mysterious virus begins to tear through the crew on the ship. Not only must Number One hold everything together, she may actually be the only one who can help with the cure.

This episode was a wonderful parable of the subtle evil of being the "model minority." Number One is hiding a secret that might resonate with many different members of the audience in slightly different ways. Hers is the story of the immigrant who hides their country of origin, or the LGBT+ individual who hides in the closet, or the person whose religion is persecuted by the majority. It's hard being "one of the good ones" -- and it's important that she uses those exact real world words to sum up her story. She's expressing a fear that many know personally, and many more surely can understand: you have to be better than everyone else because others are judged by you; you can never be certain whether you're one failure away from erasing all your successes.

This message is woven quite well into the episode, sneaking up on you within the framework of other well-worn Star Trek tropes. When we see Number One positively glowing (literally) in her quarters, we think we know what this moment is. She's lying about being infected by the strange virus (or perhaps doesn't know that she is), and later she's going to be revealed to be at the center of everything happening on the ship. Instead, we learn she's not lying for the reason we thought, and she is at the center of everything in a very different and important way.

I'm fascinated how all this was created on the back of various official and not-quite-official back story about the character. In "canon" Star Trek, virtually nothing was really known about Number One, aside from her probably being an alien. Original Star Trek writer D.C. Fontana wrote a Star Trek novel all about the character; I haven't read it, but I understand that all the background about her species comes from there. The Strange New Worlds writers chose to make all of that official, fusing it with a detail introduced by Deep Space Nine, that genetic modification is banned in the Federation.

I do like how this very Number One-centric plot manages to involve other characters too. The background of genetic modification has major resonance with La'an, and the episode digs into it. We also learn that Number One isn't the only one with a secret; M'Benga is hiding something major too, revealed in the course of the episode. (I'll admit, I'm not quite sure why he's keeping his thing a secret. I suppose it's a matter of stakes: he cannot risk any chance of being told "no," so better not to ask.) Elsewhere in the plot, Pike and Spock get to have a buddy adventure on the planet; it's nothing major, though we should be getting plenty of moments like these for the pair if they're writing toward the friendship Spock would risk everything for in the original series two-parter "The Menagerie."

I enjoyed this episode a lot. If anything, I think I talked myself into liking it even more in thinking through it here. "Ghosts of Illyria" is the best episode of Strange New Worlds so far (though they've all been solid). I give it an A-.