Strange New Worlds: Hegemony

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has had a superlative second season, serving up a wide variety of genres and tones, each one a perfectly crafted example of the thing it's aiming to be. But I feel like unfortunately, they saved the worst for last; the season finale, "Hegemony," felt to me like the weakest episode of the season.

When the Gorn violently attack a non-Federation colony where Captain Batel and Nurse Chapel were visiting aboard the Cayuga, the Enterprise must come to the rescue. But the Enterprise is deprived of sensors, communication, and transporters, and also can't be seen crossing a territory border that Starfleet has agreed to with the Gorn.

Let me first say that the "worst" from Strange New Worlds is still a thoroughly enjoyable hour of television; it may well be that any disappointment I feel about this episode stems mostly from how great the rest of the show has been by comparison. Let me also say that I have no problem with the series adopting "horror movie" as one of its episodic genre experiments. (It did so the last time we saw the Gorn as well.)

Still, there are some elements here that feel a bit off to me. I wrote of the prior Gorn episode that the degree to which they were borrowing from the Alien franchise felt more "homage" than "ripoff." Yet it didn't sit quite right with me, and I think this episode drew more into focus the reason why. The more monstrous the show makes the Gorn -- the more the content justifies Pike's zinger of a line that "sometimes a monster is just a monster" -- the less it all hangs together for me. It's hard to believe the logic of a space-faring race this hostile not only outwardly but amongst itself, and hard to accept how utterly disinterested in diplomacy all our heroes are here, even with Hemmer's death coloring their perceptions.

And while I'm on the lack of empathy here -- we don't get any confirmation that Chapel is the only survivor left aboard the Cayuga, which in turn makes both Spock and Chapel look quite callous even before the unusually visceral fight they have with the adult Gorn. (Side note: what reason did Spock have for going inside the ship if he hadn't spotted Chapel? He surely didn't need to position a rocket inside on the bridge.)

But like I said, even a "bad" episode of Strange New Worlds really just amounts to a "less good" episode, and there was plenty here that I did like. I loved how central Chapel and Spock's relationship was to the story here, adding big personal stakes. Ortegas got more good moments over the course of her first landing party. The arrival of Montgomery Scott felt well executed on every level, from the way the character was written, to the "why now?" of him appearing here, to the casting of Martin Quinn -- who not only channeled just enough of James Doohan to feel right, but who became the first actual Scotsman to play the role.

There were also some very smart choices about how certain characters were put in danger late in the episode. A lot of the cast of Strange New Worlds has "plot immunity," because we know they exist in the time of the original series. And while there are ways to generate suspense that don't only turn on they question of "will they live or die?", that question is the main focus of a horror story like this. So it's notable that characters who aren't explicitly safe are in harm's way: La'an and Ortegas are among those who have been abducted by the Gorn, and Batel is the one who's incubating lethal baby Gorns inside her body. (That said, the actual final moment of the cliffhanger -- Pike's moment of indecision -- rings false to me. If he was actually going to order the Enterprise to break orbit and leave everyone behind, then surely that would have been the moment of cliffhanger.)

So... cliffhanger, huh? This is probably going be the longest Star Trek fans have ever dangled off a cliff; thanks to studios opting to play hardball against the reasonable demands of striking actors and writers, the third season of Strange New Worlds hasn't even begun filming. That in turn makes it quite likely we won't get a resolution until 2025. Ouch.

But then, waiting for more Strange New Worlds was going to be hard anyway. Because while I'd probably only give "Hegemony" a B, I'd say this season as a whole was the best Star Trek we've had in the modern era -- and I greedily want more of that, as fast as they can give it to me. (Not really; I think the smaller episode count and the time they take creating them is exactly why and how it can be that good.)