Logline
An accident with an experimental quantum probability field causes everyone on the USS Enterprise to break uncontrollably into song, but the real danger is that the field is expanding and beginning to impact other ships—allies and enemies alike.
Written by Dana Horgan & Bill Wolkoff
Directed by Dermott Downs
@ValueSubtracted
Subspace Rhapsody is the greatest episode in all of Star Trek canon.I will die on this hill.
Edit: cannon -> canon
Yep, it’s the best episode
I’ll join you, great episode.
@GaiusGornicusCaesar
Then you’re gonna be my cha’DIch from now on!All the haters will draw their last breaths at the end of our Mek’Leths!
I loved the episode overall, but that Klingon fleet should have been commanded by L’Rell herself (though that was an extremely fun way to bring back Bruce Horak without shoehorning the Ghost of Hemmer into it).
General Gorkog was Bruce Horak? That’s awesome.
Also more fuel for my running theory that Hemmer isn’t truly dead. I think they’re holding onto him for a surprise return in the coming confrontation with the Gorn.
but that Klingon fleet should have been commanded by L’Rell herself
Whaaaattt … this exists!! Man … that klingon in the verses really works well! And yes, giving us something a bit more faithful to klingons feels like the missed opportunity of the episode … pretty sure there would have been a way for it be comedic and klingon at the same time.
I’m okay with what they did - they were tapping into the Broadway Musical Universe, after all, not the Epic Klingon Opera Universe.
I thought it was hilarious and works with their dishonor but I also wouldn’t have loved if they had been head banging to metal or going to town on some Klingon opera.
God I wish there was more Klingon Heavy Metal out there…
@ValueSubtracted Delightful episode. I laughed, I cried, I (would have) bought the t-shirt. I have really enjoyed some of the risks they’ve taken this season, this one and the Mashup with Lower Decks and punctuating with the powerful war episode. I’ve looked forward to Thursdays.
removed by mod
Going on a tangent to complain hyperbolically about a different show is both unwelcoming and off-topic.
removed by mod
If I had a nickel for every time Uhura solved a problem by singing at it, I’d have two nickels. That’s not a lot, but it’s the same number as how many times Chakotay’s been lost in the Delta Quadrant.
This was a fun episode. Some bangers, though I agree with some of the people who think some songs could have been shortened. The unexpected Klingon boy band was an amazing gag that didn’t overstay its welcome. Overall, I think it’s great to have Trek embrace the old-school campiness from time to time.
Anyone else convinced Captain Batel is kinda doomed? Pike got off the relationship trauma fairly easily in this episode.
I suspect she’ll die in this season finale. I just get those vibes.
Personally, I want to see Pike and Una happen. They’re already mom and dad to the rest of the crew (which skews really young).
I mean never say never? If I’m remembering the Cage correctly the Talosians at least thought there would be potential there. Though this is the much younger and possibly a little sexist Pike.
Anyone else convinced Captain Batel is kinda doomed?
spoiler
The preview clip from “The Ready Room” suggests she’s about to have a very bad day, but maybe it’s a fakeout.
D:
Kirk and Uhura are real ones for never telling McCoy that Spock had a phase of being proud to be human until he got dumped by Nurse Chapel. He never would have let him live it down.
I’ve come to the conclusion that SNW is the entry point series.
Do you like legal dramas? Perfect, here’s a great LGBTQ allegory episode!
Do you like goofy animation like Rick and Morty? Here’s the crossover with Lower Decks!
Do you like gritty serious war stories? We’re still dealing with the trauma of the Klingon War!
Do you like showtunes? Somehow we pulled that off too! (also Chapel’s song is a straight banger)
SNW is the show I’d introduce my friends to in order to get them into Star Trek as a larger thing. I think it’s an easier entry point than any other series.
You can also use the episodes they liked to recommend other Trek shows. Someone that likes the zany episodes would probably like TOS or VOY, for example.
Another great episode. The a capella theme song was great too.
I enjoyed the episode well enough as a gimmick. It was clear the cast really enjoyed themselves and I’m glad we get episodes like this.
I am a fan of musicals and musical theatre. While it’s nice to see them have a go, it certainly is one of the musicals of all time. Nothing impressed me. It wasn’t particularly inspiring or interesting. Forcing that dreadful auto tune on several of the characters felt even worse. It would have felt charming for them to not necessarily nail every note. In the end, I now see in retrospect why the marketing for this episode contained none of the musical numbers; the executives might have thought it would put people off.
I never mind when a good Star Trek show does an average episode because I’m always happy to see more of the characters I love.
After last weeks episode, which in my opinion could be one of, if not the best Star Trek has done in 30 years, I feel like they can take the small L here.
I actually loved the bad autotune for the same reason you mentioned thatd you’d like the bad singing lol. It was kind of fun going “whelp, that actor is an actor not a singer”. I guess auto-tune has been around enough it’s in that “charm” category for me: “eh, they got the spirit”.
Another amazing episode and a certainly fresh idea for the Klingons with their K-pop, or Kling-pop?
I think they towed a good line on whimsy, emotion and gimmicks and kept it well grounded as character exploration. Let’s force everyone to process their season’s emotional growth in song!
Also I have to say I love how much focus SNW gives to lower ranking officers. Classic trek always ended up focusing on a few senior officers but this is a proper ensemble number.
Only thing I want more now is this with Elle Cordova doing her Star Trek technoblabble songs in it.
OMG LOL
This is one of the Elle Cordova Technobabble songs being referred to for the uninitiated. It’s pretty funny.
I think Strange New Worlds is the best Star Trek show made so far. Every season they seem to have 9 amazing episodes and one so cringe I end up fast forwarding through the whole thing. This musical one was the low point of the season and the series, just like that word fantasy ones they did in season 1.
Bleh.
Nope, can’t do it. I was afraid of the LD crossover but I got through it. But this, I can’t watch it. I got through a couple minutes and had to turn it off.
Hmm, it looks like we’re not allowed to dislike the musical episode here… Regardless, I’m with you.
With rare exceptions, I just can’t stand musicals. The forced jauntiness, hollow emotion, and in this case autotuned singing. Ugh! Give me normal acting or give me death (today is a good day for it).
I love Star Trek, and I love musicals. These are two of my favorite things, and I never thought they should mix. When this was announced, I was very skeptical. I have to say, that they pulled it off, and it was AMAZING! The plot was a bit meh and definitely made to shoehorn in the musical, but the singing really did it for me. “How Would That Feel” (La’an’s solo) and “Keep Us Connected” (Uhura’s solo) were my favorite songs, and I have listened to them so much today. “How Would That Feel” definitely cemented La’an’s place as my favorite character.
Another musical theatre Star Trek fan who finally caught up with the episode. Obviously I loved it. The writers took their cue from “Once More With Feelings” and used the “very special episode” conceit to progress seasonal character arcs (as they did with “Those Old Scientists”). You could tell was the intent even from the “previously on” recap with a bunch of relationship tensions ready to be revealed through song. (The bunnies reference was a nice nod to the Buffy episode.)
I knew Celia Rose Gooding could sing (although, sadly, she was off when I saw Jagged Little Pill on Broadway), so the actor whose vocal chops surprised me most was Christina Chong. I see from her wikipedia entry that she was actually in the Elton John musical Aida in Berlin, so that makes sense now.
Maybe my favourite minor running gag was how the characters always heard and acknowledged the backing music - in dialogue or with just a glance. I could go on a pretentious detour on mimetic vs diegetic music, but won’t.
But I wasn’t blind to some of the episode’s flaws either. The biggest to me was that the songs lacked the craft and polish of really good musical theatre songs, with (for instance) many imperfect rhymes and awkward prosody (putting the stress on the wrong syl-LA-ble of a word). Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, a show that I loved, suffered from the same issue.
A minor complaint is that I didn’t think we need the rules of musical theatre to be so explicitly lampshaded by the characters, although La’an treating it as security (and personal, emotional) risk was cute - and in character.
Christina Chong reportedly switched to auditioning for television roles after an injury sidelined her musical theatre career for a time. It doesn’t sound as though she ever expected the kind of role she has with La’an.
She’s currently releasing a series of music videos for an album. The next one will come out at 4:00 pm EDT today August 7th. You can check out her other offerings on her YouTube channel. I’ve posted her release of two weeks ago to the Quark’s community here on this instance as it seems the better place to follow her singing career outside of the franchise.
Oh god, “Once More With Feeling” was the first musical TV episode that stuck with me. So much passion in that episode and it brought to a head so many issues the characters had been dealing with up to that point. It still stands out as my favorite episode of the entire series.
Guess I’m going to have to rewatch this episode, I missed the bunny reference!
Or maybe midgets.
I agree. As a fellow musical lover (I’m posting from the intermission of a touring Broadway show) the writers clearly understand what the music in musicals is meant to represent. La’an’s and Uhura’s solo numbers definitely gave some emotional insight into both characters that I feel benefited the show beyond just being decent musical numbers.
The autotune was painful in a few moments for certain actors but hey, they’re not professional singers, and I would have loved a bigger dance number, but I know that’s pushing it.
I hated it, because I hate musicals, but I love that it happened. I loved watching it and hated every godamn second.
Please… no more… but I’m glad this happened and I’m glad people that like musicals seemed to more or less have enjoyed it.
Just… I’m begging… no more.
edit: it was incredibly charming. I still hate it. It’s cannon and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I hate it. There is no way I am the only person like this.
You’re not alone. I hate musicals. Love that they can have fun like this in Trek, but please never again please because I’ll have to watch that one too.
Edit: Chapel’s number was pretty cool though.
There were some excellent bits, but I wish it didn’t take up one of the ten-episode slots. They did loop in Kirk’s kid, so that was an excellent plot beat, as was the TOS soundtrack. I didn’t have a problem with the concept (“Wha if…”); Spock / Chapel / Pike / M’Benga had great tunes and didn’t mind Ortegas and Klingons doing Tope 40 boy-band is 20 yrs of meme material. The finale was uneven.
Outside of the individual elements and the “Strange New World” concept … it was rough, especially knowing how good the show can be, and it took one of the spots for THAT goodness. Wish we had 15 episode seasons.
I hear you on the “ten episode” bit. I HATE that that became standard. It’s some real garbage and has hurt a lot of different shows. The Last of Us was generally amazing, but suffered from rushing a bit. Without spoilers, there’s an episode where they expand on a minor gay character from the game, and the main characters aren’t in it much. The episode is amazing, and also got a ton of hate because the internet is awful, but one very valid critique is that in spending the entire episode in that wonderful little vignette, you had to rush beats of other episodes. That could have been fixed by simply having more episodes in the season.
Point is, somewhere shrinkflation hit our TV shows and I hate it lol.
Right there with you on 10 episode seasons. I wish we could go back to 22 episode seasons.
Can we talk about how great it is that they keep tinkering with the opening credits for the special episodes? Because I love it every time they do. Fukkin acapella man.
I’m a huge sucker for altered opening credits. Enterprise still wins for the best one of these with its mirror universe episode.
+1 for that theme in In a Mirror Darkly.
I love this as well! And doing fun stuff with the star trek brand intro as well, I hope they continue both of those in the future
Oh yeah, great idea. Kinda like the Simpsons gag or so:
- If they ever have a mirror episode, the opening credits should be horizontally mirrored
- If they ever have a time travel episode, the opening credits should go backwards
- Another cross-over episode? DS9 or some other ship better appear in there! etc.
Reminds me of how Community would change up things all the time.
10 minutes in, Oh I like it!
46minutes, kind of over it. Would love to hear a Klingon song
If there was a klingon-side spinoff, this episode would be entitled:
Bat’leth of the Bands
