Strange New Worlds: Under the Cloak of War

I have returned home from a long week of Gen Con to a week's worth of piled up television that kept chugging along in my absence. That included the big musical episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (one of the first things I wanted to watch upon my return). However, I actually didn't manage to post a review of the prior episode before my departure. So first, my thoughts on "Under the Cloak of War."

When the Enterprise is tasked with transporting a Klingon war criminal turned diplomat, tension is high among the crew -- especially for M'Benga, Chapel, and Ortegas, all of whom had difficult experiences during the war.

I'll stipulate right out of the gate that if your taste for Star Trek is only for things Gene Roddenberry would have approved of, you're probably not going to like this episode. Even 1960s Star Trek, before Roddenberry fully embraced his own "futurist visionary" hype and imposed difficult drama-curtailing restrictions on character behavior, would not have dared to show heroes in as dark a manner as this episode does. Yet I think the decision to do so pays great dividends, in the form of Star Trek's best episode about "the horrors of war" since Deep Space Nine's "The Siege of AR-558."

For starters, it's now possible for television to present a much more believable and visceral war setting than ever before. This script, by Davy Perez, does an amazing job of transposing war movie tropes into a Star Trek setting, from lack of supplies becoming a more specific lack of working technology to patients dropped in by transporter rather than helicopter. (Side note: The dispassionate drone of the "incoming transport" warning was a super-effective trigger for transitioning in and out of the episode's many flashbacks.)

Moreover, modern television better understands that "show, don't tell" is the way to engage the audience's heart as well as brain. (Maybe it always understood that and simply now has the means.) A particular episode of The Next Generation gave O'Brien an excellent monologue about the effects of war, concluding in the memorable line "I don't hate you, Cardassian. I hate what I became because of you." As well written as that was, and as skillfully as Colm Meaney delivered it, this episode takes the same arc for M'Benga and shows it to us. Along the way, we learn better about the drug he and Chapel took earlier in the season, get a prequel to his use of the transporter to save his daughter... and crucially, learn just how far he's still willing to go.

Yes, M'Benga's decision at the end of this episode will be controversial, as will Chapel's choice to cover for him. But I do think the episode earned that final twist. (And if you prefer, the deliberate choice to show the audience the death of Dak'rah only through a blurry screen perhaps provides a modicum of deniability if you want to interpret the episode another way.)

The episode also gave us ominous progression in the relationship between Chapel and Spock. There's something sadly ironic in the fact that Chapel wants to repress and ignore emotion here, and cannot connect with Spock about that. Regardless, this is a part of Chapel's past that matters profoundly, and Spock may well be incapable of understanding it even if Chapel could bring herself to discuss it. This relationship was already doomed by "canon," of course -- but this episode made it feel plausibly doomed in a more natural narrative way as well.

All that, plus Clint Howard collecting yet another Star Trek series appearance!

Strange New Worlds has shown how agile and flexible it can be, changing up genres and tones from week to week with seemingly no effort at all (though I'm certain the effort is substantial!). They did it again here, producing another great episode in a great second season that I rate as an A-.