LizstarTrek - Strange New Worlds Season 7 episode 6
Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you’re curious about a nerd’s views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of these episodes! I’ve watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!
This is the third season of SNW, finally coming out. We’re gonna watch an episode of this once a week until we finish, alongside Voyager, cause it’s coming out y’know, one a week. Yay! I love SNW!
Through the Lens of Time - SNW 5/10
This season is going really hard on the romance drama, which is starting to get mostly tiring for me. But it’s ALSO pushing this new nurse guy, Dana. He’s SO excited and happy to be here. This guy is SO fucking dead. He’s got the voice over and it’s really pushing him, he’s so fucked. It also seems like he was brought in secretly as a third wheel so that thigns aren’t TOO awkward between Spock and Korby as they do some kind of dig.
Ortegas’ brother is also here! He’s recording stuff for a documentary, it seems, and is also invited to this mission, which SEEMS to be an archaeological dig on a sacred site. He’s also getting romance vibes with Uhura. They’re really trying to hook EVERYONE up this season aren’t they? Though Pelia the Warpcore Witch also seems to be real into him. And I like that, cause it’s funny.
They all enter some kind of temple, after Chapel does some kind of thing to gain entry. They IMMEDIATELY find corpses and Spock is like “okay, protocol tells is we need to leave now”. Korby gets pissy and refuses, and Chapel, who’s in charge of the mission, sides with him cause he’s her girlfriend. There’s also a lot of tension cause of the whole Spock x Chapel thing. See, this is why everyone shouldn’t just fuck. Use the holodeck to fuck- wait. We already had an episode about how that’s a bad idea at this time.
New Kid, who’s name is Gamble, acts like a TOS red shirt and randomly touches shit. Anyways, woah, New Kid gets his fucking eyes exploded cause things are actually super dangerous in here! Looks like Spock was right, what a mother fucking shock! The native living with them sees something else, freaks the fuck out, and tries to run away, and is vaporized. But we have so many things we could learn here!!! Korby was ABSOLUTELY going to just fucking die because he wasn’t being careful enough if others didn’t die before him, frankly. Why was he SO SURE that he had to do this dig RIGHT THE FUCK NOW? “I’ve waited all my life for this!” Yeah dude, but you’re like, 33. This temple isn’t going anywhere. Put down that fucking idiot ball, right now, mister!
They get split up, as if it couldnt’ get any worse, and are in different rooms, but able to communicate. This now turns into a split room puzzle game escape room. Seems to be the same room but also not, seperate dimensions. They can still communicate though. Why? I dunno, bad writing?
The Eyeball Regenerator, which apparently exists, is not working. New Kid’s brain is also registering as braindead. New episode name: Gamble’s Brain. Gamble is also acting Kinda Sus now. Hmm.
Ten minutes ago, Gamble’s eyes exploded. Now, Spock is saying how Korby is not being safe enough and not taking any precautions, and then he TAKES A FUCKING VISOR OFF OF A DEAD ALIEN AND PUTS IT ON HIS EYEBALLS AND USES IT TO LOOK AT THINGS. WHAT THE FUCK, SPOCK? I’m starting to think this episode might just not be well written.
Patel, who I remind you is now half Gorn, meets Gamble, and starts speaking in tongues. Gamble does the same, and they proceed to beat the shit out of each other. Gamble also murders someone in the scuffle. After he’s captured, he just breaks through the force fields and kills more red shirts. Damn, this episode has a body count.
Pelia shoots Gamble in the back, releasing the ancient dimensional alien inside of him. Scotty then captures it in a Pokeball and tosses it up into the transporter. He locks it in the transport buffer, until they can figure out what to do with it. There’s no WAY that’ll backfire!!!
Pelia has a big discussion about ancient evil, which turns out to be her mugging for the documentary. Okay, that was funny. I was like “wow that’s very on the nose- oh okay, that’s good”. I do like Pelia. As M’Benga calls Gamble’s parents to tell them about their son, the Enterprise computer screens flash alien text. Wow, I knew it’d backfire but THAT fast.
I think my judgement of this will depend on if and when it goes anywhere, but I feel it was poorly written. Something was off and the pacing was bad.
The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail - SNW 8/10
What a weird episode title.
Anyways, Kirk is on the Ferragut, and he’s bored as fuck. His captain, V’rel is a hot Vulcan bitch who does everything By The Book, and Kirk wants a shakeup. Be careful what you wish for, Kirk. They disturb a disturbance in the crust of a planet they’re observing, which turns out to be the planet fucking exploding. The captain and a lot of the crew is taken out. Comms are down, so there’s no way to communicate.
Enterprise comes to help out, a team beaming over to try and help. Kirk is in charge, V’Rel is alive but injured. Turns out there was some kind of gravitational beam that blew up the planet, though it’d take a ship so much larger than anything else on record. Uhura sets up comms with the Enterprise, who orders everyone to evacuate. Fair. La’an and some of the critically wounded beam over first. Before they can do anything else though, THIS happens!
A giant fucking thing comes and literally eats the Enterprise. La’an explains she thinks it’s the Eater of Worlds. A giant ancient scavenger ship. Ghost story. Interesting. You’d think something like this would be more than just a Legend, but whatever works. Kirk refuses to leave people on the ship, and demands Scotty make miracles. This is actually the first time Kirk and Scotty are even working together. Since Spock is here too, as acting 2nd in command, with Uhura too, it’s practically a TOS reunion party. Just like, a pre-union.
The things in charge of this giant Scavenger ship appear to have boarded the Enterprise, and are just fucking Big Daddies.
Kirk is making bad decisions. He ignores all his advisors, and the ship explodes. Not like, fully, it’s just dead in the water. He ignored Scotty, and he’s pushed it too far. He gets angry and refuses to listen to any other advices. He storms off. They decide he needs someone to help him through this, someone with a less emotional style to calm him. Time for the start of Spock x Kirk!!
We get to see Pelia’s quarters. It’s absolutely incredible. She digs in a box for some ancient junk. She pulls out a mother fucking Atari. Holy hell. I want to see her video game collection. Communications are being jammed, so her plan? Wire the enterprise with ancient cables and use old-ass phones. That’s honestly fantastic.
We learn what the title of this episode means. The Sehlat that Ate Its Tail is a Vulcan idiom, similar to “the dog that caught the car”. Someone hunting after a thing, then… now what? Kirk, going after leadership, now he’s stuck and frozen. It’s cute. Anyways, Spock and Kirk have a heart to heart, and it helps. He comes back with a new plan. Make their ship look REAL tasty to the scavengers so they’ll come biting, then make them regreat it.
Back on the Enterprise, the Big Daddies refuse to kill Pike after it knocks his helmet off. Weird. Strange.
“I haven’t done this since I was a roadie for the dead!” “…Your species can communicate with dead people?” Holy shit, I LOVE Pelia. When they actually do things with her she’s so funny.
This episode is not doing a LOT with Pike, but it’s doing more than the rest of this season’s done. He’s the CAPTAIN, and he’s barely got any love this season. He’s the best character on this show. Very fun moments with him. “Take a step back, this might blow up.” “Captain, if it does, it’ll blow up the entire engineering section.” “…A very large step back, then?” I love you, Pike.
Spock manages to hit the aliens where they hurt and blow them upm just as the Enterprise escapes.
We find out the Scavengers were Human. On the side of the ship, they find “XCV-100”, which is a reference to a classic Ship concept. Apparently many years ago, some Humans built a ship to escape an environmental collapse of Earth. But then the ship disappeared, never to be heard from again. But how did they go from THAT, to whatever they became? It’s not explained.
I’m not really sure I like the ending all that much? The big twist? But the lessons Pike imparts to Kirk in the end are good, at least, and the action and jokes are good. It’s like, a solid season 1 or 2 episode.