Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

[wm cheng]

3 hours ago, sh9000 said:

I like the added ships to the opening credits.

  Hide contents

Yes those were Q and I immediately recognized de Lancie's voice.

 

Hey I'm glad someone noticed!  If you mean these extra ships in the opening credits...

I designed those in the 2nd season, but it never made it to screen due to budget, but I'm sure glad to see them now!

That's why I haven't been building too many Macross models lately, I've been busy in this world 😛

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, wm cheng said:

I designed those in the 2nd season, but it never made it to screen due to budget, but I'm sure glad to see them now!

 

That's why I haven't been building too many Macross models lately, I've been busy in this world 😛

 

I quite like this one.  It feels like a very natural evolution of the pre-Federation Earth Cargo Service freighters from Star Trek: Enterprise and a nice sort of middle ground with the TOS/TAS-era Antares-type.

[tekering]

4 hours ago, wm cheng said:

I designed those in the 2nd season, but it never made it to screen due to budget, but I'm sure glad to see them now!

They're all fantastic, and I hope they're eventually produced as miniatures of some kind.

What an honour it must be to contribute to this legacy! 

[Thom]

23 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Saw a news piece the other day which said that Strange New Worlds aims to end the series with the transfer of command from Captain Pike to Captain Kirk, essentially making a direct segue into TOS.

I have to admit, I rather like the idea.

Will be cool to see it happen. I just hope they keep the modern aesthetics for the ship. 

And I haven't seen the new episodes yet, but those are some great designs! That last looks like a modernized Crossfield!

Edited July 18 by Thom

[wm cheng]

2 hours ago, Thom said:

Will be cool to see it happen. I just hope they keep the modern aesthetics for the ship. 

And I haven't seen the new episodes yet, but those are some great designs! That last looks like a modernized Crossfield!

Yes, the last one was a Crossfield saucer section mixed with my own original design for episode 1 of the second season where there was a rogue fraction building their own "look-alike" Federation Starship to start a war.  This was an initial design option, we ended up with an inverted secondary hull and downward nacelles version in the actual episode and there was actually a TrekYards video 

discussing it and an article talking about how this fixes so many things wrong with Discovery :P!!!  (they asked me to work years ago on Discovery but I refused)

https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/did-star-trek-just-fix-discoverys-biggest-mistake.html

I wished they had done a little research and asked me about the design instead of guessing on their own articles. 

The script called that we were to shoot the scenes on the Discovery Set (for budget they didn't want to build a new ship interior for just 1 episode) so they scripted a call out that it looks like a Crossfield class (not my favourite saucer design) but I had to follow script!  I'm glad they took an older option and made it real/canon in the opening sequence now.  

Edited July 18 by wm cheng

[Seto Kaiba]

Caught the first of the new episodes last night - Part II of "Hegemony" - and I have to say I still hate what Strange New Worlds has done to the Gorn.

Spoiler

I'm gonna come right out and say it.  Whoever on the creative team is behind this iteration of the Gorn must absolutely LOVE Ridley Scott's Prometheus.

The juvenile Gorn we've seen in previous seasons are essentially just Great Value brand Legally Distinct(TM) Xenomorphs.  Not even the properly scary "It can think!" xeno from the original Alien, they're the "just a dangerous animal" kind from the sequels.  They breed parasitically from people who come in contact with dangerous goo, they're born by bursting out of the host like the Neomorphs, screech non-verbally, and hide out in the vents when they're not mauling people to death.

The adults we see in "Hegemony" Parts I and II are basically just the Engineers from Prometheus.  They're giant, silent, implacable men who wear organic-looking space suits on asymmetrical organic technology spaceships and just try to maim the protagonists with their bare hands instead of using anything like a weapon.  They never speak and are not seen engaging in any behavior that isn't murderous violence, so the only real indicator that they're not also mindless horror movie monsters like the juveniles is that the scenes with them mainly take place on their ships.  There's little sense that the Gorn are intelligent, let alone a spacefaring culture that has a substantial interstellar civilization that can tangibly threaten the Federation.  

The resolution has to be the weirdest part... a fake solar flare in their home star system is enough to make every Gorn everywhere forget what they're doing, pack up, and go home?  It's enough to even make ones that haven't been born yet pack it in somehow.  Seems like the third or fourth NuTrek case of writers forgetting that these other major powers have more than just one planet to their names.

It seems like we will now never mention the Gorn again, so thank goodness for small favors.

 

[sh9000]

On 7/17/2025 at 8:58 PM, wm cheng said:

Hey I'm glad someone noticed!  If you mean these extra ships in the opening credits...

I designed those in the 2nd season, but it never made it to screen due to budget, but I'm sure glad to see them now!

That's why I haven't been building too many Macross models lately, I've been busy in this world 😛

You do great Macross and Star Trek work.

[Seto Kaiba]

Seems like there's a real deep cut in the new season's second episode "Wedding Bell Blues".

Spoiler

We're going all the way back to an old and rather mediocre TNG novel Q-Squared, which was more or less written for the singular point of establishing that Trelane was a Q and was either a relative or family friend of the Q we know and love from TNG.

 

[Hikuro]

soooooo was that Moses Ingram moving from Kenobi and now onto Star Trek?

[sh9000]

 

[Seto Kaiba]

Rhys Darby absolutely stole the show.  That was wild.

[sh9000]

Season 4 Sneek Peek.

 

[TehPW]

Watched Episode 3... the only dislike is the gold bling these particular Klingons wear.

 

Other than that, very good episode. Anyone wants to guess that Ortega leaves Star Fleet (as opposed to normal way Red Shirts leave)?

[pengbuzz]

14 minutes ago, TehPW said:

Watched Episode 3... the only dislike is the gold bling these particular Klingons wear.

 

Other than that, very good episode. Anyone wants to guess that Ortega leaves Star Fleet (as opposed to normal way Red Shirts leave)?

And her replacement...

Spoiler

... Hikaru Sulu?

 

[Hikuro]

8 hours ago, TehPW said:

Watched Episode 3... the only dislike is the gold bling these particular Klingons wear.

 

Other than that, very good episode. Anyone wants to guess that Ortega leaves Star Fleet (as opposed to normal way Red Shirts leave)?

Klingon's in the TOS always had something gold looking. I mean mostly it was those over the shoulder sash's but still. 

[azrael]

5 hours ago, Hikuro said:

Klingon's in the TOS always had something gold looking. I mean mostly it was those over the shoulder sash's but still. 

Or the gold-ish tunics all the guys wore. We should be seeing more flatter foreheads though. 

[Seto Kaiba]

14 hours ago, TehPW said:

Watched Episode 3... the only dislike is the gold bling these particular Klingons wear.

That's pretty on-brand for a TOS-era Klingon, mind you.  This is one of the uniforms used in TOS.  Gold and bronze - not counting epic quantities of skin bronzer - were pretty much half of the Klingons entire color palette in that era.  The rest was black.

Like Starfleet, the Imperial Klingon Defense Force must be updating its uniforms every so often as fashion evolves on the homeworld.  The idea of a fashion-conscious Klingon is an inherently funny thought to me, but the sharp metallics do make them very visually distinct from the Starfleet officers in their bright primary colors.

Then again, when it comes to makeup and sartorial choices I'll take the TOS Klingons and/or SNW Klingons over the STD Klingorcs 100 times out of 100 without question or hesitation.

 

 

14 hours ago, TehPW said:

Other than that, very good episode. Anyone wants to guess that Ortega leaves Star Fleet (as opposed to normal way Red Shirts leave)?

Hm... nah.  I don't think she'll leave the Enterprise, retire from Starfleet, or fall victim to the Redshirt Occupational Hazard.

What I think is going on here is that the writers and showrunners for Strange New Worlds sat up and said "Oh sh*t, we've got two whole seasons in the can already and we haven't done anything with one member of the main cast!"

Literally every other main cast member has had an episode or multi-episode story arc devoted to fleshing them out as characters except Ortegas.  Even new additions like Scotty and recurring guest characters like Pelia and Sam Kirk.  Until this last two episodes, Ortegas's entire character could be summed up in her mantra "I'm Erica Ortegas, I fly the ship!".  She's that underdeveloped.  The PTSD from her near-death experience at the hands of the Gorn is a good opportunity to explore what makes her tick as a person and not just the redshirt who mans the helm.  She's been nothing but flippant the entire series so far, so seeing her genuinely rattled should make for some good character development.

 

 

14 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

And her replacement...

  Hide contents

... Hikaru Sulu?

Unlikely.

A lot of people forget this because he's just so iconic as the Enterprise's helmsman, but Mr. Sulu was not the Enterprise's helmsman at the start of TOS.  When he was first introduced in the show's second pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before", Sulu was a science division department head serving under Spock.  He doesn't swap his science blues out for the gold command division tunic and a seat at the helm until the show's first regular episode.  (Because the show's writers realized there wouldn't really be a need for an astrophysicist every episode, but they did need a regular at the helm.)

[pengbuzz]

On 7/27/2025 at 3:14 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

That's pretty on-brand for a TOS-era Klingon, mind you.  This is one of the uniforms used in TOS.  Gold and bronze - not counting epic quantities of skin bronzer - were pretty much half of the Klingons entire color palette in that era.  The rest was black.

Like Starfleet, the Imperial Klingon Defense Force must be updating its uniforms every so often as fashion evolves on the homeworld.  The idea of a fashion-conscious Klingon is an inherently funny thought to me, but the sharp metallics do make them very visually distinct from the Starfleet officers in their bright primary colors.

Then again, when it comes to makeup and sartorial choices I'll take the TOS Klingons and/or SNW Klingons over the STD Klingorcs 100 times out of 100 without question or hesitation.

 

 

Hm... nah.  I don't think she'll leave the Enterprise, retire from Starfleet, or fall victim to the Redshirt Occupational Hazard.

What I think is going on here is that the writers and showrunners for Strange New Worlds sat up and said "Oh sh*t, we've got two whole seasons in the can already and we haven't done anything with one member of the main cast!"

Literally every other main cast member has had an episode or multi-episode story arc devoted to fleshing them out as characters except Ortegas.  Even new additions like Scotty and recurring guest characters like Pelia and Sam Kirk.  Until this last two episodes, Ortegas's entire character could be summed up in her mantra "I'm Erica Ortegas, I fly the ship!".  She's that underdeveloped.  The PTSD from her near-death experience at the hands of the Gorn is a good opportunity to explore what makes her tick as a person and not just the redshirt who mans the helm.  She's been nothing but flippant the entire series so far, so seeing her genuinely rattled should make for some good character development.

 

 

Unlikely.

A lot of people forget this because he's just so iconic as the Enterprise's helmsman, but Mr. Sulu was not the Enterprise's helmsman at the start of TOS.  When he was first introduced in the show's second pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before", Sulu was a science division department head serving under Spock.  He doesn't swap his science blues out for the gold command division tunic and a seat at the helm until the show's first regular episode.  (Because the show's writers realized there wouldn't really be a need for an astrophysicist every episode, but they did need a regular at the helm.)

Well, when you have Jim Carrey as Kirk, I figured what's a little non-canon?

[TehPW]

all valid points. The gold armor was... it was funny (hilarious AF) in the singing episode... but seeing that as away attire, i swear someone on the production staff are closeted fans of FIVE STAR STORIES, so much gold....

 

Oh I leveled up. Does becoming a Pineapple Eater mean i have to start making my Dex saves more often?

Edited July 30 by TehPW
i thought it would trigger AT 1500 posts...?

[Seto Kaiba]

On 7/28/2025 at 5:41 PM, pengbuzz said:

Well, when you have Jim Carrey as Kirk, I figured what's a little non-canon?

I'll admit, I have no idea what this is meant to mean. 🤔

 

26 minutes ago, TehPW said:

all valid points. The gold armor was... it was funny (hilarious AF) in the singing episode... but seeing that as away attire, i swear someone on the production staff are closeted fans of FIVE STAR STORIES, so much gold....

Well, we know a bunch of the 90's Star Trek production staff were anime fans... they dropped a fair amount of references to Dirty Pair, a few lowkey references to Macross and used Japanese model kits in kitbashes fairly liberally, etc.  It would not surprise me.

Then again, considering Star Trek: Discovery's mirror universe arc(s), it would not surprise me if the current Gen X-heavy production staff are big fans of another and much darker sci-fi franchise with an even more profound fetish for gold leaf: Warhammer 40,000.

[Seto Kaiba]

Sitting down to watch S3 Ep.3 "Shuttle to Kenfori".

Spoiler

Man, Pike can't have anything can he?  Bro gets barely a fifteen second monologue about how happy he is to have his girlfriend around even if she has to leave soon for her new posting and finds her passed out on the floor in his quarters.

Oooookay... so this flower macguffin they're after is rumored to have a chemical compound that is universally able to remove foreign molecules across cell membranes?  What.  I know Trek is on the soft side of sci-fi a fair bit, but this is softer than most.  This flower contains a chemical that is somehow magically able to tell what's "invasive" molecules and what's not no matter the native biochemistry it's inserted into?  That is just actual magic.  Also, they didn't remove the remaining Gorn tissue after it went dormant?  They just kind of trusted it to go away forever?  Also, so much for the will of the patient and the legal right to refuse treatment.  M'Benga's suffering a Dr. Crusher-level character assassination here and we're not even to the title card.  Poor bloke, he doesn't deserve this.

Conveniently, this flower is only (maybe) found on a single frontier planet that used to be a Federation colony but is now inside the Klingon Neutral Zone established after the war.  A planet so dangerous the Klingons left a warning buoy in orbit to tell people "Even we want none of what's going on here, please and thank you".

Star Trek has always depicted early Starfleet as a near-certain death sentence for long term relationships but damn... poor Dr. M'Benga's got four ex-wives out there.  He claims that he technically only has three because one was an annulment instead of divorce.  

We get to see a Klingon skeleton, complete with horizontal and vertical ribs.  And a severed Klingon leg that someone's been "devouring". 

Oh my god, this is a zombie episode.  Are we really doing Star Trek zombies AGAIN?  Didn't we learn our lesson with First Contact ruining the Borg?

Zombies shouldn't really be much of a threat in a world where everyone's hand-weapons can completely disintegrate someone almost instantly.  No need for headshots.

 

Edited July 30 by Seto Kaiba

[pengbuzz]

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'll admit, I have no idea what this is meant to mean. 🤔

It means: when you have an actor who doesn't look like Kirk but looks more like Jim Carrey (and doesn't have the physicality of Kirk or his presence), canon is kind of going out the window anyways.

Next up: Homey the Clown as McCoy.

Spoiler

It's all good Seto: just messing around and such. I'm known to do that.

 

As to the episode:

Spoiler

  

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Sitting down to watch S3 Ep.3 "Shuttle to Kenfori".

  Hide contents

Man, Pike can't have anything can he?  Bro gets barely a fifteen second monologue about how happy he is to have his girlfriend around even if she has to leave soon for her new posting and finds her passed out on the floor in his quarters.

 

Right? Seems like the universe likes to urinate on poor Pike.

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Oooookay... so this flower macguffin they're

after is rumored to have a chemical compound that is universally able to remove foreign molecules across cell membranes?  What.  I know Trek is on the soft side of sci-fi a fair bit, but this is softer than most.  This flower contains a chemical that is somehow magically able to tell what's "invasive" molecules and what's not no matter the native biochemistry it's inserted into?  That is just actual magic.  Also, they didn't remove the remaining Gorn tissue after it went dormant?  They just kind of trusted it to go away forever?  Also, so much for the will of the patient and the legal right to refuse treatment.  M'Benga's suffering a Dr. Crusher-level character assassination here and we're not even to the title card.  Poor bloke, he doesn't deserve this.

Yup, magic;  no science there, no reasonable explanation to how the chemical mechanics work.

And I agree: they didn't remove the Gorn tissue?! 

Patient rights seem to be dependent upon the plot.

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Conveniently, this flower is only (maybe) found on a single frontier planet that used to be a Federation colony but is now inside the Klingon Neutral Zone established after the war.  A planet so dangerous the Klingons left a warning buoy in orbit to tell people "Even we want none of what's going on here, please and thank you".

Yeah, that's the interstellar sign to run like hell and don't stop 'til you reach the great boundary.

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Star Trek has always depicted early Starfleet as a near-certain death sentence for long term relationships but damn... poor Dr. M'Benga's got four ex-wives out there.  He claims that he technically only has three because one was an annulment instead of divorce.  

Imagine the alimony he has to pay!

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

We get to see a Klingon skeleton, complete with horizontal and vertical ribs.  And a severed Klingon leg that someone's been "devouring". 

I'll have to re-watch that part.

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Oh my god, this is a zombie episode.  Are we really doing Star Trek zombies AGAIN?  Didn't we learn our lesson with First Contact ruining the Borg?

Zombies shouldn't really be much of a threat in a world where everyone's hand-weapons can completely disintegrate someone almost instantly.  No need for headshots.

Or maybe some warp-core coolant?

 

Edited July 30 by pengbuzz

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Wow, the last 2 episodes have been terrible.,  This show is really losing it. Seriously zombies.  

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

It means: when you have an actor who doesn't look like Kirk but looks more like Jim Carrey (and doesn't have the physicality of Kirk or his presence), canon is kind of going out the window anyways.

Oh, knock it off... it's not like Star Trek characters haven't been recast with a non-lookalikes before.  As long as they're visually in the ballpark and can give a good performance, who cares?  Anson Mount is the fourth actor to play Captain Pike, and none of them look the same.  

 

3 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Yeah, that's the interstellar sign to run like hell and don't stop 'til you reach the great boundary.

At least there's a semi-compelling explanation for why Pike and M'Benga don't see the warning for what it is.

Having finished the episode, it's not bad.  Not great, but not bad.

Spoiler

Honestly, I have three main problems with it.

1. The writers very clearly thought they were doing something clever and "meta" by having Pike and M'Benga try to quirkily go through that tired modern horror cliche of refusing to use the "Z" word.  M'Benga is stuck being the straight man who finds the word lazy and wants to call them something else, while Pike is the one to argue it's distinction without difference to not call them "zombies" because in every respect they function exactly like zombies.  It's not cute, it's not funny, it's a trope so dead it's practically a zombie in its own right.
    
2. The practical effects are really uneven in quality.  The Klingon skeleton and the gory, dismembered body parts that Pike and M'Benga find are really well done... but it's painfully, painfully obvious that a bunch of the zombies are just actors in zombie masks.
    
3. In general, zombies should not be much of a threat in a setting like Star Trek.  A lot of a zombie's intimidation factor comes from it being mostly indifferent to the kind of physical injury that would incapacitate or kill a living person.  That's a huge problem if you're trying to fight them with modern firearms and blades, but considerably less so in a setting like Star Trek where the smallest regular sidearm is a handheld energy weapon approximately the size of a garage door clicker or a small TV remote with enough firepower to blast 2m+ holes in stone walls and vaporize people. 
   
   Pike and M'Benga are both carrying the more powerful Type 2 in this episode.  That's a weapon with multiple settings capable of vaporizing a person, with a wide array of lower settings that can immolate people, blow fist-sized (T'Kuvma) or basketball-sized (Jo'Bril) holes in people, blast limbs clean off (Stex), cut through metal plating with ease, etc.
   
   The only way the writers are able to inject any tension at all into this story is by having Captain Pike and Dr. M'Benga seemingly forget that their phasers can do any of this.  In fact, if you pay attention throughout the episode you can see that Pike and M'Benga seem to have completely forgotten to take their phasers off of Stun.  The beautiful and ingeniously designed SNW phaser props have backlit settings dials that change color depending on the setting, with blue for stun and red for kill.  Their LEDs are quite bright, so it is very visible that both of their phasers are on stun the entire time until M'Benga loses his and Pike uses his as an ad hoc grenade.  Somehow, it never occurs to them to just use a higher setting and actually shoot the zombies the way the Klingons are doing to fairly good effect.

 

Edited July 30 by Seto Kaiba

[Thom]

Good to see some new episodes up, I can't wait to see more of those other ships in action.

Episode-wise, I think it was good-meh-good. I do wish...

Spoiler

...we'd have gotten a bit of fleet action against the Gorn, whom I am liking despite the changes. There have rarely been any really alien aliens on the show, so not having just a bit of prosthetic brow-ridge or wonky ear is an improvement. The down-side is that the CG is obvious against the practical and, yeah, they should have stayed away from the incubation procreation... Not a deal breaker for me, though I was hoping the ending of the premier would have had a bit more punch, which a fleet action would have helped with.

The wedding episode... I think the best parts of it were with Spock dancing with La'an. The rest just seemed too abrupt and too silly, with no real explanation as to why Christine's 'friend' was not effected. Oh, and Spock using his vows to talk Christine out of the compulsion was also pretty good.

I do wish they had never went with her and Spock having a relationship though. I still preferer that they'd stayed with the TOS level of unrequited'ness between them.

And the zombies I was alright with. I like how they couldn't spot any life-signs and no fauna and that's because the undead ate all of them! Plus, who would mark on a planet Beware of Zombies - Keep Out!(?) As for the gold filigree on the Klingons, as long as they are not Disco Klingons I'm happy! Dang that design choice is still stupid after all these years!

For Ortegas, I would have been alright with her going out as a hero, though I would like to have seen some triage being performed since she was bleeding out so much. This more acerbic turn could be good too, though if I was Una () I would have relieved her almost immediately. 'Good flying us out of their, Ortegas, now get off the bridge!' I would understand some difficulties with crewmates and authority figures as she is dealing with her PTSD, but once it endangers the ship like that, the gloves should come off.

Looking forward to more and hoping they improve with the later ones. We know they can do dang good episodes!

[pengbuzz]

18 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Oh, knock it off... it's not like Star Trek characters haven't been recast with a non-lookalikes before.  As long as they're visually in the ballpark and can give a good performance, who cares?  Anson Mount is the fourth actor to play Captain Pike, and none of them look the same.  

 

At least there's a semi-compelling explanation for why Pike and M'Benga don't see the warning for what it is.

Having finished the episode, it's not bad.  Not great, but not bad.

  Reveal hidden contents

Honestly, I have three main problems with it.

1. The writers very clearly thought they were doing something clever and "meta" by having Pike and M'Benga try to quirkily go through that tired modern horror cliche of refusing to use the "Z" word.  M'Benga is stuck being the straight man who finds the word lazy and wants to call them something else, while Pike is the one to argue it's distinction without difference to not call them "zombies" because in every respect they function exactly like zombies.  It's not cute, it's not funny, it's a trope so dead it's practically a zombie in its own right.
    
2. The practical effects are really uneven in quality.  The Klingon skeleton and the gory, dismembered body parts that Pike and M'Benga find are really well done... but it's painfully, painfully obvious that a bunch of the zombies are just actors in zombie masks.
    
3. In general, zombies should not be much of a threat in a setting like Star Trek.  A lot of a zombie's intimidation factor comes from it being mostly indifferent to the kind of physical injury that would incapacitate or kill a living person.  That's a huge problem if you're trying to fight them with modern firearms and blades, but considerably less so in a setting like Star Trek where the smallest regular sidearm is a handheld energy weapon approximately the size of a garage door clicker or a small TV remote with enough firepower to blast 2m+ holes in stone walls and vaporize people. 
   
   Pike and M'Benga are both carrying the more powerful Type 2 in this episode.  That's a weapon with multiple settings capable of vaporizing a person, with a wide array of lower settings that can immolate people, blow fist-sized (T'Kuvma) or basketball-sized (Jo'Bril) holes in people, blast limbs clean off (Stex), cut through metal plating with ease, etc.
   
   The only way the writers are able to inject any tension at all into this story is by having Captain Pike and Dr. M'Benga seemingly forget that their phasers can do any of this.  In fact, if you pay attention throughout the episode you can see that Pike and M'Benga seem to have completely forgotten to take their phasers off of Stun.  The beautiful and ingeniously designed SNW phaser props have backlit settings dials that change color depending on the setting, with blue for stun and red for kill.  Their LEDs are quite bright, so it is very visible that both of their phasers are on stun the entire time until M'Benga loses his and Pike uses his as an ad hoc grenade.  Somehow, it never occurs to them to just use a higher setting and actually shoot the zombies the way the Klingons are doing to fairly good effect.

 

"Ballpark"? The next skipper of the Enterprise is freakin' Fire Marshal Bill?!! ROFL!

*laughs self silly while getting a cheeseburger*

 That actually made my dad, Seto!  I owe you dinner sometime!

[Seto Kaiba]

Spoiler

10 hours ago, Thom said:

The wedding episode... I think the best parts of it were with Spock dancing with La'an. The rest just seemed too abrupt and too silly, with no real explanation as to why Christine's 'friend' was not effected. Oh, and Spock using his vows to talk Christine out of the compulsion was also pretty good.

Much of the episode revolves around the cast learning that strong emotions (anger, love, etc.) are enough to snap someone out of Trelane's control.

The ill-fated Dr. Korby spends pretty much the entire time getting sh*t on Trelane, so he probably had plenty of anger to tap into.

Spoiler

And yes, this is the same Roger Korby who will later lead an expedition to Exo III and try to save his own life by transferring his consciousness into an android body there in TOS "What Are Little Girls Made Of".

 

So... "A Space Adventure Hour".

Spoiler

Oh my.  So that's why Tom Paris chose to tweak Voyager's holodeck settings to present his entire Captain Proton holo-serial in black and white.  It was to save his eyes.

This episode's cold open is on Lt. Kirk, Ortegas, and I think that's Nurse Chapel roleplaying an ancient and hammy space serial.  The color scheme can best be described as a crime against color vision.  The set is primarily painted battleship green with bright orange accents, teal and pink fill lights illuminating wall decorations like a person-sized oscilloscope screen, giant cartoon levers, 60's bucket seats, and some of the most hilariously good-bad wardrobe choices ever.  Kirk appears to be wearing a grey fleece jumpsuit with lime green trim and a massive collar left unzipped so his chest hair is on display, Ortegas is wearing a dreadful wig and two-tone blue/teal jumsuit with a glitter-covered belt, and Chapel's wearing a bright yellow glitter sleeved leotard and pink sequined smock.

They are delivering their lines with a level of ham that even Will Shatner would have considered to be unwatchably over the top in the 60's.

I made it to exactly a minute and thirty-seven seconds before I needed to stop and take stock of what I was looking at, because my mind simply refused to comprehend.

Spoiler

Honestly, one of the best bits might be the unapologetically low-tech practical effects.

I want to see the blooper reel from this episode's production so very badly.

That the cast keep a straight face while delivering this dialog in this way shows absolutely gargantuan self-control.  I would be on the floor.

Spoiler

The holo-program they're using even comes with opening credits that mimic those of the original Star Trek series.

So the setup here is that the Enterprise has been dispatched to study a neutron star and, while they're doing that, the crew have also been called upon to try out a new bit of tech that Starfleet believes will make living aboard starships long term a bit more bearable: the Recreation Room (pronounced "re-creation room").  Starfleet's earliest version of holodeck technology that debuted all the way back in 1974 in Star Trek: the Animated Series.  The Enterprise has apparently been outfitted with one of the very first ones in the fleet and is meant to evaluate their potential as entertainment and relaxation for the crew.  Naturally, they pick the incredibly straight-laced La'an for this.

La'an decides that the recreation room's debut program will be a recreation of a 1960's detective series she read as a child after being rescued from the Gorn.  Watching her fangirl to Scotty about the books is surprisingly amusing in its own right.

Scotty, on the other hand, is out here breaking the cardinal rule of holodeck etiquette right off the bat.  Since the recreation room/holodeck needs an extremely high level of detail to create convincing characters, he's using the only source of data on hand that's that detailed: the biometric data from the holodeck pattern buffer.  So he's about to populate the simulation with replicas of the ship's crew. 

They went with the exact same yellow grid structure as the TNG holodeck.

It's a nice touch that they worked the Star Trek spoof from the cold open into the main story too... it's the story-within-a-story-within-a-story that the characters of the story-within-a-story are actors/producers/showrunners for.  

 

[Seto Kaiba]

OK, I am quite thoroughly satisfied with "A Space Adventure Hour".

Spoiler

It obeys all of Knox's 10 Commandments of mystery writing, and I still didn't see the twist coming.  Beautifully done.

It also has all the staples of a classic 90's Trek holodeck episode, complete with broken safety protocols, a simulation run amok, and the computer being overly literal with exact words.

They even manage justify the anachronistically advanced version of the Recreation Room/Holodeck in a way that doesn't create any contradictions with previous Trek works and even justifies a previously inexplicable plot point from Star Trek: Voyager in the bargain.

Spoiler

Strange New Worlds's early incarnation of the full-featured holodeck technology that becomes commonplace by The Next Generation was/is a scaled down and improved version of combat simulator technology normally found on large starbases and planetside facilities.  It draws an enormous amount of power and requires vast computing resources to produce convincing and adaptive simulations with a high degree of fidelity.

This early prototype holodeck installed on Pike's Enterprise is tied directly into main power and using the resources of the ship's main computer.  La'an follows Pike's own suggestion and tries to push the system to its limits, creating an "Elementary, Dear Data" sort of situation.  Instead of a sentient hologram, what La'an unintentionally gets from the holodeck's AI is bottlenecking the CPU and power resources available for the rest of the ship and has to rush to conclude the program so the Enterprise can get away from a stellar event they were observing.

So at the end, Pike recommends that the technology is not ready for prime time and Scotty asks to include in the report a recommendation that it could be made viable through the addition of dedicated power systems and servers.  

That explains why the Enterprise towards the end of Kirk's five year mission had a much less capable version of the Recreation Room that lacks the holodeck's advanced features and is instead an environment simulator able to reproduce a finite area only.  This neatly ties up Janeway's remarks that holodecks didn't exist on starships yet during the TOS era and her and her crew's frustrations with trying and failing to tap into the holodeck's dedicated power systems to offset the ship's limited resources after being stranded in the delta quadrant.  Starfleet took Scott's recommendations on board, and true holodecks didn't become a standard feature on starships until Starfleet had adequately powerful stand-alone power systems and computers to run them.

The one downside to the episode is that they now seem to be trying to set La'an up as a new love interest for Spock now that he and nurse Chapel have officially called it quits.

 

[Keith]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

OK, I am quite thoroughly satisfied with "A Space Adventure Hour".

  Hide contents

It obeys all of Knox's 10 Commandments of mystery writing, and I still didn't see the twist coming.  Beautifully done.

It also has all the staples of a classic 90's Trek holodeck episode, complete with broken safety protocols, a simulation run amok, and the computer being overly literal with exact words.

They even manage justify the anachronistically advanced version of the Recreation Room/Holodeck in a way that doesn't create any contradictions with previous Trek works and even justifies a previously inexplicable plot point from Star Trek: Voyager in the bargain.

  Hide contents

Strange New Worlds's early incarnation of the full-featured holodeck technology that becomes commonplace by The Next Generation was/is a scaled down and improved version of combat simulator technology normally found on large starbases and planetside facilities.  It draws an enormous amount of power and requires vast computing resources to produce convincing and adaptive simulations with a high degree of fidelity.

This early prototype holodeck installed on Pike's Enterprise is tied directly into main power and using the resources of the ship's main computer.  La'an follows Pike's own suggestion and tries to push the system to its limits, creating an "Elementary, Dear Data" sort of situation.  Instead of a sentient hologram, what La'an unintentionally gets from the holodeck's AI is bottlenecking the CPU and power resources available for the rest of the ship and has to rush to conclude the program so the Enterprise can get away from a stellar event they were observing.

So at the end, Pike recommends that the technology is not ready for prime time and Scotty asks to include in the report a recommendation that it could be made viable through the addition of dedicated power systems and servers.  

That explains why the Enterprise towards the end of Kirk's five year mission had a much less capable version of the Recreation Room that lacks the holodeck's advanced features and is instead an environment simulator able to reproduce a finite area only.  This neatly ties up Janeway's remarks that holodecks didn't exist on starships yet during the TOS era and her and her crew's frustrations with trying and failing to tap into the holodeck's dedicated power systems to offset the ship's limited resources after being stranded in the delta quadrant.  Starfleet took Scott's recommendations on board, and true holodecks didn't become a standard feature on starships until Starfleet had adequately powerful stand-alone power systems and computers to run them.

The one downside to the episode is that they now seem to be trying to set La'an up as a new love interest for Spock now that he and nurse Chapel have officially called it quits.

 

I think there's a directed purpose for that development. 

Spoiler

SNW opened a box when they introduced Spock's romance with Chapel, one that's going to need to be closed before the TOS era. This new Spock x La'an romance is very likely being setup with a tragic death/broken heart that will lead Spock to "logically" shut out emotions. Pure theory at this point, but one that would tie up those otherwise loose ends.

 

[azrael]

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

  Hide contents

It also has all the staples of a classic 90's Trek holodeck episode, complete with broken safety protocols, a simulation run amok, and the computer being overly literal with exact words.

 

Spoiler

Good to know LLMs still don't detect subtlety.  

 

Spoiler

16 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Scotty, on the other hand, is out here breaking the cardinal rule of holodeck etiquette right off the bat.  Since the recreation room/holodeck needs an extremely high level of detail to create convincing characters, he's using the only source of data on hand that's that detailed: the biometric data from the holodeck pattern buffer.

Spoiler

I like that idea. At this point in time, there's no data to train the AI on to create NPCs so why not use data from the Transpotter pattern buffer to create NPCs. Unless you want your holodeck NPCs to have 6-7 fingers, be quad jointed, etc.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

Just now, azrael said:

  Hide contents

I like that idea. At this point in time, there's no data to train the AI on to create NPCs so why not use data from the Transpotter pattern buffer to create NPCs. Unless you want your holodeck NPCs to have 6-7 fingers, be quad jointed, etc.

Oh... oh no.  Thank you for that horrible mental image that absolutely won't be haunting my nightmares now. 😆

Spoiler

That would have been full-on nightmare fuel... a holodeck firmly in the uncanny valley doing "AI art"-tier renderings of humans.

 

[pengbuzz]

11 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Oh... oh no.  Thank you for that horrible mental image that absolutely won't be haunting my nightmares now. 😆

  Hide contents

That would have been full-on nightmare fuel... a holodeck firmly in the uncanny valley doing "AI art"-tier renderings of humans.

 

Just don't hook the transporter up to the holodeck or you'll have some seriously messed up things going on...

[Seto Kaiba]

On 8/1/2025 at 5:19 PM, pengbuzz said:

Just don't hook the transporter up to the holodeck or you'll have some seriously messed up things going on...

Nah, we've seen what happens then... you just get Bond villains and upset your tailor. 🤔

Star Trek really has gotten comfortable dropping references to TAS though, hasn't it?  There was a good twenty or so years there where TAS was nearly as verboten as subject as Star Trek V: the Final Frontier, Lower Decks of course hit us with some low-key ones like that Kzinti ensign on the Cerritos, the Pandronian drill instructor, and the corpse of Spock Two on display in a collector's ship.  IINM, "A Space Adventure Hour" is the first overt reference to TAS in a live-action series.

[Thom]

I enjoyed Space Adventure Hour. A few niggle would be that the holodeck looked and operated too similar to the later TNG depiction, even including the same means of failure. Otherwise, the acting of the cast in their alternate roles was real good and really enjoyed Welsey getting in-touch with his inner Shatner! Those paused line deliveries!

And I am thankful that they put Romjin's hair back down! What where they trying to do with that bun-thing last episode..? We also saw that Ortegas was back at the helm, albight in an emergency situation, though I really hope her subpot is not being brushed under the rug already. She was taken off duty for a reason and Una declaring trust in her again was pretty quick.

I really like that they tacked Last Frontier bloopers into the end. 

On 8/1/2025 at 1:24 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

OK, I am quite thoroughly satisfied with "A Space Adventure Hour".

  Hide contents

The one downside to the episode is that they now seem to be trying to set La'an up as a new love interest for Spock now that he and nurse Chapel have officially called it quits.

 

I actually consider this development a plus...

Spoiler

I felt their slower progression was more believable, and having it be with La'an has a far lesser impact on the original series, since we apparently never hear from the character again

On 8/1/2025 at 4:07 AM, Keith said:

I think there's a directed purpose for that development. 

  Hide contents

SNW opened a box when they introduced Spock's romance with Chapel, one that's going to need to be closed before the TOS era. This new Spock x La'an romance is very likely being setup with a tragic death/broken heart that will lead Spock to "logically" shut out emotions. Pure theory at this point, but one that would tie up those otherwise loose ends.

 

I think you are right, there.

Spoiler

I'd hate to see La'an die, but they've a;ready done the broken heart bit with Chapel.

Now, who is going to model the Adventure!?

Edited August 6 by Thom

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Thom said:

I enjoyed Space Adventure Hour. A few niggle would be that the holodeck looked and operated too similar to the later TNG depiction, even including the same means of failure.

It's not exactly the same failure...

Spoiler

... since the holodeck isn't malfunctioning.  It's doing exactly what La'an asked it to.  The problem is it's tied into the ship's main computer and her "Elementary, Dear Data"-ish request for a mystery equal to her talents caused it to bottleneck the rest of the ship's access to power and computer resources.

 

3 hours ago, Thom said:

And I am thankful that they put Romjin's hair back down! What where they trying to do with that bun-thing last episode..?

Yeah, I don't know what they were thinking there.  Maybe they were trying for a more Janeway-esque aesthetic since she was in command?  Not a style that suits her, IMO.  

 

3 hours ago, Thom said:

We also saw that Ortegas was back at the helm, albight in an emergency situation, though I really hope her subpot is not being brushed under the rug already. She was taken off duty for a reason and Una declaring trust in her again was pretty quick.

Teasers for what IINM is tomorrow's episode suggest they are absolutely not throwing Ortegas's subplot away, since they're bringing her brother back.