Strange New Worlds: Memento Mori

With as many episodes as there have been of as many Star Trek television series as there have been, truly new ideas are surely few and far between. But the latest episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, "Memento Mori," demonstrates the new series' potential to make an engaging hour of science fiction even when they're essentially "remixing" episodes that earlier Treks have done.

When the Enterprise comes under attack by the Gorn, it's forced to seek cover in the clouds of gas giant being devoured by a black hole. But the Gorn don't give up the chase that easily, leading to a high stakes game of cat-and-mouse. When Number One is seriously wounded during an exchange, La'an must step in as first officer, compartmentalizing her own history with the relentless aliens.

This "submarine battle" metaphor has been done on Star Trek before -- most notably in the original series' "Balance of Terror" and Deep Space Nine's "Starship Down." Crew members being cut off from one another and forced to deal with problems outside their wheelhouse has been done too -- The Next Generation's "The Arsenal of Freedom" and "Disaster," or the aforementioned "Starship Down." But familiarity doesn't really breed contempt here, and Strange New Worlds makes the case to revisit this formula in a number of ways.

We have new characters here, and whatever circumstance we may have seen on Star Trek, we haven't seen these people in it. This is primarily a La'an episode, and her story arc leads us to the first Vulcan mindmeld on Strange New Worlds; the scene (and in particular, actors Christina Chong and Ethan Peck) do not disappoint. Even better, in my book, are some of the other character moments sprinkled throughout. Uhura and Hemmer make for a fun pairing, her cracking his crusty exterior even under some of the worst conditions possible. Pike's command style continues to be interesting in how relaxed it is; his banter with Ortegas would be near-scandalous on any other Trek show (save perhaps Lower Decks), but it works here. And throughout the episode, the dramatic device of the memorial pins works to give many characters a bit of history.

The visuals remain best ever for Star Trek -- and I do mean ever. They continue to surpass Discovery and Picard even though they're all being made at the same time, and they surpass even the J.J. Abrams-produced trilogy of films despite the vastly higher budget of the movies. The submarine battle has never looked so good on Star Trek: it has fast and slow moments, has tension and action, and always looks dangerous.

All that said... even though this episode does bring its own approach to things I've seen before, I have seen them before. This was my least favorite of the four Strange New Worlds episodes so far; the balance tipped a little too far away from the characters for my taste, the "problem" was really just an action movie setup without many big thoughts underpinning it. It was enjoyable all the same. I simply didn't like it as much as what we've seen so far.

Still, if this is a "low point" for Strange New Worlds, then it's a very good series indeed. I give "Memento Mori" a B.