Logline
Captain Pike and his crew welcome a Klingon defector aboard the USS Enterprise, but his presence triggers the revelation of some shocking secrets.
Written by Davy Perez
Directed by Jeff Byrd
This episode exists because of the stupid Starfleet rule of having traumatized veterans of the war have to interact positively with the supposedly bad-to-good turned war crime enemy. That’s a classic example of people acting stupid for “plot” (e.g. we couldn’t have this episode without the stupid bit).
I liked that this episode and Quality of Mercy fleshed out (prime) Pike’s weakness-- he’s very much a diplomat, not a warrior. He avoids conflict to a fault, and this distinguishes him from other “diplomat” captains like Picard, who’s more willing to show his teeth when necessary.
It really contextualizes why Starfleet Command told Pike to stay on his Five Year Mission during Discovery s1–ya just know he would have gotten the Enterprise banged up while trying to make nice withsome T’kuvma fanatics.
I love when people post relevant clips. Thanks
Damn that was a heavy episode, i think i’m ready for the musical now. Wish we could have seen more of the Kelcie Mae.
Not much to say beyond this episode was amazing. I love how this crew can do it all - lighthearted comedy, to dark, emotional drama. The scars that Ortegas, Chapel, and M’Benga wore in this episode felt real. When Chapel hesitated at knocking the one guy out of the pattern buffer, and M’Benga just cooly smacked the button, it was a clear reminder that war is hell and it breaks people.
I liked it, but two things went a bit too far.
The bio-bed acting up was just too silly of an issue to bring up. I mean this is starfleets flagship with the best of the best on board and M’Benga keeps working on this bio-bed, never fully fixing it? Sounds weird.
Second, they are making this whole keeping a person buffered in a transporter thing way too useful. Like the only downside seems to be that if you get a malfunction you may need to “delete” the person. I remember some episode of another series, was it Rikers clone in TNG? Where they were worried about integrity of the pattern, since it was stored so long. Did not seem to be a problem for his daughter though. Don’t like how this is so trivialized, it would solve so many problems if this could be done “professionally”.
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You raise some good points but your condescending intro was seriously unnecessary and uncalled for.
Sure it could be symbolic. It could also be just a bio-bed. If its used as a metaphor it is a terrible one in my opinion, seeing as this is an advanced future with massive technological advancement. Why out of all people on this ship is it M’Benga doing this, never succeeding, but at no time an actual engineer, you know, like someone with 1000+ years experience, is asked to fix it? I get it that its part of his character that he is handy, but still this is medical equipment, its essential, it needs to work 100%. How would this not be escalated to relevant personel? This is not the war times depicted in the flashbacks, they have resource to do this. Also quite some time has passed since the Gorn attack.
I rather agree with one of the other posters who said its a setup for something to come.
So, thanks for your comment but seriously work on your attitude if you consider posting more than just this one comment.
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Personal attacks are out of line.
Being 100% honest with you I never intended to attack anyone personally and would greatly appreciate help in highlighting where I’ve done that. I’d normally reread my comment to try to figure out where any misunderstanding could have occurred in situations like this, but the comment’s been removed. I put considerable effort into that comment and don’t want this to happen again in the future.
Excellent post, absolutely right about symobolism
Re: the transporters.
Patterns in the buffer usually degrade over time - The TNG Technical Manual says patterns can last about seven minutes before degradation begins. Obviously, Scotty was able to extend this dramatically, though with only a 50% success rate.
They did touch on this in SNW season one, when M’Benga said he had to rematerialize his daughter periodically. However, the timeframe, while not specified, seemed a helluva lot longer than seven minutes.
I love the TNG Technical Manual but anything onscreen has to trump it.
I’m much more fussed about rapid organ fabricators and dermal regenerators being a thing this early.
I think we’re going to have to buy into 23rd century technology being ahead of were we expect from TOS - but not necessarily ahead of some of the wild claims (and therapies) Bones had access to in the movies.
For all we know, 24th century transporters have an advantage over the 23rd century design but at the expense of superior pattern storage.
Or they don’t, but 23rd century medicine isn’t sophisticated enough to detect/understand the damage.
The Tech Manual notwithstanding, on screen we’ve definitely seen longer than seven minutes, notably VOY: “Counterpoint” and DIS: “Stormy Weather”. I take it like I do the original Tech Manual’s statement that you can’t fire phasers at warp.
You’re certainly right that there’s some wiggle room, though “Counterpoint” has the advantage of having shown the pattern degradation occurring.
About the bed: There seems to be an ongoing sub-plot about random systems on the ship glitching out. I’ve seen speculation they’re quietly setting up some kind of AI takeover issue later on. Note the odd shot the episode ends on, with the bed’s info screen flickering again.
Sounds feasible but reminds me of the DISCO control plot. I hope that is not returning.
My take is the same as the other poster the biobed was metaphor for the doctors state of mind…but happy to be wrong if it is system glitches and have seen suggestions it links to romulan time sabatours
I thought it was played like pattern buffer storage is an m’benga special skill he is better at than his peers . It was not something she was taught at the academy
He’s a cleaner, a doctor, and also the best transporter tech in the business, better than folks operating teleporters a hundred years later.
M’Benga Sue
They should take the idea of “storing people in buffers” all the way to extreme and explore it like Black Mirror does. What does this mean if everyone had the opportunity to store people in buffers? Can everyone sign up for this service and instantly beam you into a buffer whenever you have an incurable diseases at the time? Is there a service to auto-beam you into the buffer if the ship is about to crash-land? Can richer people pay to have poorer people’s buffer be deleted when you run out of buffer space? What happens if there is a glitch and people who are in the buffer experience 20 years in real-time?
I think there’s so much potential for more exploration here. It would be cool to have Charlie Booker on a Star Trek episode, as he kinda did a fun/excellent/dark Star Trek Black Mirror episode too.
There was the episode with Scotty in TNG (Relics) where there was indeed the problem of the pattern of the person who was in the buffer with him degrading, but that was over decades (2294-2369), while M’Bengas daughter was in the pattern buffer significantly less time. She was also rematerialised from time to time and it was noted that not doing so risked the integrity of the pattern, which contributed to the issue seen in the TNG episode.
@RootBeerGuy @startrek The transporter is essentially magic. If you think too long about it, you’ll wonder why, for example, *everyone* doesn’t “store their pattern”, and thus become effectively immortal. Or why a pattern can’t be materialized multiple times, to generate an army of clones.
I love Trek, but it’s much more space opera than hard sci-fi, and often the “sciencey” bits are purely for narrative convenience (see also “holodeck”).
Yep, particularly with the Riker clone, it seems like the safest way to do away missions would be to send down an instance of the crew rather than the actual crew. But then what would they do with all those extra red shirts?
David Brin’s book ‘Kiln People’ explores this idea.
The problem is, as we saw with Tom Riker, the duplicates have their own existence and experiences. Should they just be destroyed like Tuvix in order to restore the originals?
Transporters essentially destroy and recreate people anyway, you have to imagine it is already something that most folks in Starfleet have made peace with, somehow.
Tom Riker is proof that we’re just bags of meat, and consciousness is an emergent phenomenon. The only difference is that instances copies have a divergence point in their experiences. The Bobiverse books explore similar ideas.
But it is hard to imagine those instances wouldn’t want to avoid getting merc’d Tuvix-style. The handwavium way you’d probably try to approach it would be some sort of memory reintegration. Not implausible in Star Trek
I figure this is as fine a place to ask as anywhere else… what is the extra badge that Pelia wears? I don’t recognize it and I haven’t spotted any close ups on it to get a good look
I don’t think it’s been identified. However, she is a long-serving Starfleet officer, and was both a Chief Fleet Inspector and a (probably senior) instructor at Starfleet Academy before joining the Enterprise, so you could make a reasonable guess that it’s a badge of seniority/advanced qualification.
I think that might’ve been the best SNW episode so far. Great guest role, all-round incredible performances from the regulars. Babs absolutely smashed it, obviously. Not going to go all out and say it’s one of the top Trek episodes full stop till I’ve had time to think, but right now I can’t think of many better ones!
This is SNW’s Duet. If it marks a similar increase in quality, then SNW is going to be amazing.
Yeah, I couldn’t stop thinking about DS9’s Duet with this episode. Lots of comparisons, though I think there was a lot more grey-ish morality in the SNW world. War is complicated and it sucks for everyone involved.
Loved it. For me, M’Benga is the heart and soul of this show. I think he’s great.
I watched this immediately after watching a heavier episode of M*A*S*H and well, damn.
This made me want a mash type start trek series about a medical base during the war.
It made me think of mash too, luckily hadn’t just come off watching one but did have some of the feeling of darker episdoes
I just have to say…
Holy fucking shit.
I want to call out to everyone the BRILLIANT usage of the medical transporter incoming warning during the war scenes of the episode.
I don’t have PTSD, but I do have cPTSD which is close enough, and the way the sound designers utilized that medical transporter incoming warning seemed VERY clearly an attempt to demonstrate to viewers how PTSD triggers are formed.
Like–so many shows focus on explosions and stuff as a PTSD trigger. Because usually you talk about the soldiers as the vets, not the support personnel.
But with the MEDICS–that sound, going off again and again and again, when they were already overwhelmed and didn’t have the staff or equipment to deal with the incoming wounded…
It’s so clear to me that that sound alone, telling them they’re about to get more dumped on their head when they can’t even deal with the ones they already have, is meant to be fixated in the viewer’s memory to sort of demonstrate how it’d get lodged as a trigger in the medic’s memories.
It was just a fantastic use of sound design to help tell the story. They did it with such a deft hand that it didn’t come off as poor sound design (as it could have), but was still CONSTANTLY THERE, putting everyone on edge.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we hear that sound in a later episode and either Chapel or M’Benga (or both) completely hit the roof.
Edit: Unrelated to the sound, I also like how they had M’Benga and Chapel fix up the young man, even resorting to “medieval” medicine by manually pumping his heart–only for him to go out and then COME BACK dead.
It just gives a feeling of hopelessness. They spent so much time fixing him up–and he died anyhow after he was sent back into the meat grinder.
All of what you described gave me strong MASH vibes and me the think the writers had to have loved that show.
When the transporters were being announced, I thought of the choppers coming in and how they all mobilized to deal with it including getting people out of the way so new patients could arrive.
Not to mention the great but heart breaking episodes where they did have to choose one life over another and that was their job in wartime. So incredibly heartbreaking in a comedy show, heartbreaking in a scifi show, yet so poignant.
@poundsignbuttstuff @startrek The war scenes definitely reminded me of the serious side of M*A*S*H.
@ValueSubtracted
Did anyone else wonder (spoiler warning):When Rah arrives on Enterprise, all the war vets hate him, but did M’Benga’s damaged mind actually awaken his military instincts as a defence mechanism, compelling him to “finish” the unfinished mission to kill Rah?
When M’Benga & Rah first spar, M’Benga says he thought about not showing up but changed his mind because “Klingon judo is good exercise”. Does he then use the session in a safe environment to A) trick Rah into…
@ValueSubtracted …thinking he is the superior fighter, and B) test if he can get a quick, sharp attack past his guard? Was he prepping in case he wanted/needed to kill him?
We don’t see the end fight, but we believe from M’Benga looking Pike in the eyes, twice saying “I didn’t start the fight” that he didn’t.
However, in M’Benga’s PTSD-ridden mind, where he never “finished” the mission to kill Rah, maybe he really doesn’t think he started it, because Rah “started it” on J’Gal?
@ValueSubtracted This could be the case whether or not Rah started the fight at the end, but after rewatching, it feels like M’Benga’s actions were all preparing for that outcome (or preparing to protect himself?) Rah of course also has a motive to kill M’Benga - he’s the only person who knows what actually happened with the Klingon commanders on J’Gal.
Can we just have a quick shout out to Jess Bush who is such a talented actress. Nurse Chapel experiencing RAGE was so convincing!
She is really good. I loved TOS, I loved other things Majel did, but I never thought before this show I’d actually be taking the Nurse Chapel character seriously.
@rob_t_firefly @stuck Strange New Worlds has two excellent stand-ins for Majel, and I am always glad to see my daughter’s namesake celebrated by giving her roles such respect.
Fancy meeting you here, old pal!
I was always a bit sad that we couldn’t get more of Majel’s Number One back in the day, I considered that the main missed opportunity of the original pilot, and SNW has really paid off in that respect as well.
I didn’t know Majel in real life, of course, but based on all she shared over the years in her work and her speaking publicly about it all I think she would have approved of what SNW is doing with her roles.
@stuck Terrific performance, and a great re-imagining of a character that was woefully underserved in TOS.
A fantastic episode.
Certainly, another YMMV of episode as the season takes on radically different tones and tropes episode by episode.
In my view, it’s one of the few episodes in the franchise that tackles trauma authentically and successfully. I would put it the ‘best of lists’.
It’s astonishing how many standout episodes we’ve had already this season.
2x07: Wacky crossover with the comedy cartoon!
2x08: WAR IS HELL, NOBODY IS INNOCENT, MORALITY IS GREY, FORGIVENESS IS QUESTIONABLE, AND THE FRIENDLY DOCTOR MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE DELIBERATELY KILLED A GUY IN COLD BLOOD
2x09: Musical!
Find you a show that can do both.
Buffy
Mom
Once more with feelingStargate
Wormhole Xtreme
The tombBut yeah had to go quite far back
Edit also how could I forget what seems an inspiration of this episode M*A*S*H
Or Farscape, which sometimes did both in the same episode. Teen Titans could pull it off in a kid-friendly format, too, along with ATLA.
Edit also how could I forget what seems an inspiration of this episode MAS*H
Yes, definitely had a MASH vibe.
More MASH the movie than the show, at least not the early seasons.
@Continuumguy @startrek But in its serious mode, without the wacky anti-authoritarian hijinks.
The laugh-track-less bits in late-stage MASH.
🎵 Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can seeeeeee… 🎵