Strange New Worlds: The Elysian Kingdom

Coming back from vacation, I'm a couple episodes behind in posting about the newest installments of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The season finale arrives today, but first I need to go back a few to "The Elysian Kingdom."

The Enterprise becomes the setting of a fantasy adventure from the storybook of Dr. M'Benga's daughter Rukiya, with the crew becoming the characters. Retaining his own memories in the middle of this transformation, Dr. M'Benga must discover what has happened, find his daughter, and seek help from Hemmer (who also seems unaffected).

This episode is certainly the wildest swing Strange New Worlds has taken in its first season -- and alongside an episode like "Spock Amok," that's saying something. This is a chance for all the cast to cut loose and play against type. Every actor seems to be having more fun than the next, whether it's Celia Rose Gooding playing Uhura as an evil queen, Christina Chong remaking the uptight La'an as an operatic diva, or Anson Mount vanquishing Pike's steely resolve to play a sniveling coward.

Things get so outlandish and silly at times that I'm tempted to say that the episode is a lot more "fun" than it is "good." But then it takes the biggest, hardest swing of all in the final act. All the zaniness leads to a deeply dramatic resolution of the ongoing subplot about M'Benga's daughter Rukiya. Babs Olusanmokun, who as M'Benga had been making his way through the episode with entertaining eyerolls and exasperated sighs, suddenly must turn on a dime and deliver not one but two back-to-back tearful goodbyes to his beloved daughter (first as a child, and then abruptly as a childlike adult).

In the writing, I'm not entirely convinced that such an abrupt tonal shift really works. But in the acting (and in the moment), I was very much sold. And moreover, I'm glad that the series decided not to string this plot along as M'Benga's eternal personal motivation. This particular taffy didn't need to be stretched any further, and it found nice resolution: to help his daughter, M'Benga had to sacrifice his own happiness.

Strange New Worlds is the throwback to classic Star Trek: episodic adventures, embodying different genres from one week to the next. Definitely, part of that formula is to do something silly and camp like "A Piece of the Action" or "Qpid." So overall, I must say I liked "The Elysian Kingdom." I give it a B+.