Original cover art by Paul Orban The Warp Bomb of Kiley 279 |
I'm going to kick off the 2022 SIHA (Search for Interesting Hollywood Aliens) by watching the first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and asking: are there any new aliens and are they interesting? 🧠
Unlikely Alien Obsessions. One of the worst things about the original Star Trek was the many aliens who either looked exactly like Earthlings or who were made to look "alien" by the makeup artist simply adding a freaky latex bump on their face. Sadly, the "new" aliens in episode 1 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds fall into this dismal category. Well, was there anything interesting about the aliens from Kiley 279? The writers for Strange New Worlds ask us to believe that right in the middle of making First Contact with aliens, the Kiley can be distracted by launching into a discussion of sports. Maybe the Kiley are even more obsessed with sports than we humans. Episode rating: 💣💣💣💣 4 warp bombs... no interesting aliens... Kiley 279 is a boring Earth clone. 👎
Can I interest you in a "reptilian" Deleb? |
Strange new world? The "new world" in episode 2 is Persephone III, which sadly gets very little screen time and nary a visit from the crew of Enterprise. 😞 However, by the end of the episode, things are looking brighter for the desiccated residents of Persephone III, the "reptilian" Deleb. And not because M'hanit is going to crash into Persephone III and put the long-suffering Deleb out of their misery...
"Finally, some water!" Celebrating Frank Kelly Freas 1922-2022 (image source) |
The Gift of H2O. A chunk of M'hanit breaks off and brings badly-needed water to the previously bone-dry and sparsely populated Persephone III. You can tell it is magical water because it begins to rain on Persephone III without the need for clouds that would otherwise obscure the expensive CGI view of the comet as seen from the planet's surface.
How Dry I Am. Yes, I have sympathy for "poor" suffering television shows that need to quickly create a visual depiction of some Sci Fi plot element. However, I suffer when television shows seem to care more about selecting the correct color for uniforms or a character's hair style than they care about depicting actual elements of the plot in the Sci Fi show.
The Arbiter disco light and music show on M'hanit. |
The Blues Shepherds |
They're on a mission from God. Sadly, the Shepherds have forgotten why they started guarding the comet. However, that does not matter because this episode is not about aliens, it is about Uhura and her amazing ability to learn alien languages and her nagging uncertainty about Starfleet as a career. Because on a show about New Worlds, the angst of young Earth women is more important than aliens from other planets. QED.
Captain Shepherd |
Spock logically explains Pike's new hairstyle to the Enterprise crew: "Sometimes you just have to laugh." |
The first two automobiles in Kansas. Imagine the first two automobiles in Kansas getting into a car accident. For this Star Trek episode, we are asked to believe that a couple hundred years ago, the Shepherds were induced to guard the comet M'hanit as it followed its crash course to planet Persephone III. The Shepherds literally do not care if all life on Persephone III will be destroyed when the comet hits the planet. Fuck the reptilian Deleb! But fear not, because along comes Captain Pike and his merry crew including cadet Uhura who can sing along with the Arbiter Light and Music Show Jukebox and save the Deleb from destruction. And viewers are told that the super advanced Arbiters had predicted this rosy outcome from the beginning, including Spock's ability to magically fly a shuttle into the core of the comet where he uses magic heat rays to melt off part of the comet and provide needed water to the Delebs. Ah, yes, the Holy Arbiters work in mysterious ways... sort of like Pike's hair-stylist. Episode rating: 👎 throw-away aliens; this episode is all about Uhura.
an Illyrian |
Continuity. Episode 1 showed that Starfleet routinely uses genetic engineering and alters the DNA of Starfleet officers. In episode 3, we learn that Starfleet does not accept Illyrians as members because the Illyrians are dedicated genetic engineers. That makes perfect sense, right?
ion storm approaching... red alert! |
I'm fine with all the vegetable sex toys, but be careful where you put those creepy antennae, Mr. Hemmer! |
Rules are made to be broken. The story so far: Captain Pike has violated the Prime Directive and now he is ready to defy the rule against allowing Illyrians in Starfleet. Also in episode 3, we learn that the ship's doctor almost got the entire crew killed because he has been secretly keeping his terminally ill daughter inside the medical transporter's pattern buffer. Just DON'T ASK how nobody else noticed what happened to his daughter.
Spock and Pike are saved by the ghosts (plasma creatures) |
Plasma Beings. I have no idea what a Star Trek ion storm is and neither do the Strange New Worlds writers, but in episode 3, we learn that there are "plasma creatures" (are these the titular "ghosts"?) who live inside the ion storms that sometimes effect Hetemit IX. The plasma creatures save the lives of Kirk and Spock after they stupidly allow themselves to get trapped on Hetemit IX during an ion storm.
CGI light infection (image source) |
Fantasy Science. In the original Star Trek, we had water from a planet that contained a "complex chain of molecules that affect humanoids like alcohol". Viewers are told in episode 3 of Strange New Worlds that the teleporters of the Enterprise automatically screen out any such foreign material... except when... plot. In episode 3, we are told that the "contagion" from Hetemit IX travels "through light waves" when it spreads from person to person. The writers made up a convoluted plot about an energy drain causing the teleportation filters not to work when the Away Team returns to Enterprise, but even later, all the Hi Tek™ medical equipment on the ship still can't detect this magical "contagion". Eventually, a magic antidote is found (at the last possible moment), just as for the TOS episode "The Naked Time". Episode rating: ☀☀☀☀ 4 death rays... the Illyrians are not new, Una is too human to be interesting and the "science" in this episode is so absurd that it can damage young minds. 😫😡
More Gorn on the way 😖. Figure 1. |
More useless reptilians. Last year (see this blog post), I comment on Fredric Brown's 1944 story "Arena". In the Star Trek episode called "Arena", Kirk battled a Gorn. For Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, just when I was ready to celebrate the lack of Klingons and Romulans, they drag the Gorn out of retirement. Question: the show is called New Worlds, so why must we recycle old aliens? Answer: episode 4 is not about aliens, not even the Gorn... it is about Lieutenant La'an Noonien-Singh and her traumatic childhood memories of the Gorn. But are the Gorn interesting aliens? No.
Please don't turn this into a horror show. |
A Race to the Bottom? When dealing with Hollywood, one always has to wonder how long it will take a new science fiction show to sink to the bottom of the barrel. Bring together a bunch of Hollywood writers with no interesting ideas about space aliens, and soon enough they will simply trot out some Evil Alien™ species to battle against the Federation (such as the Borg or the Jem'Hadar).
Star Trek Mired in Darkness. What about Strange New Worlds writer Davy Perez? If Perez wants to make changes to the Gorn, then why not make interesting changes? Why revert to the tired Evil Alien™ plot? If Perez wants to write horror stories and has nothing interesting for viewers then he has the power to inflict "Tribbles with teeth" on Star Trek fans. No, thank you. Episode rating: please take your sterotypical ALL EVIL™ Gorn and return to Discovery. 👎🙈🙉⛔
Figure 2. Star Trek SLT; Spock's Love Triangle... will Spock go to the Dark Side? r Chapel(θ) + ir T'Pring(θ) = reiθ |
a R'ongovian |
R'ongovian solar sailship |
Don't think too much, Spock. |
Really delivering on that "strange new world" idea |
If you were entertained by Enterprise Bingo then check out this video. Sadly, none of the cast members of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds who are shown in that video seem to be rabid fans of Star Trek. 😞 However...
Trekkie? |
futuristic phone sex New spinoff show: Spock's Women. |
If not Spock then how about the Captain? If not Spock's sex life, then how about an episode about one of the Captain's women? What are the odds that any "new world" we visit for Strange New Worlds is ruled by one of Pike's old girl friends? In the Star Trek universe, maybe 70 - 80%. Here's the setup: the most important cargo known to Majalis is being carried through space in a defenseless shuttle. The shuttle comes under attack by a space-cruiser, one with relatively weak weapons.
🧠 Brain? What is Brain? 🧠 A scene from TOS "Spock's Brain" |
Fantasy Medicine. The offending space-cruiser is destroyed by Enterprise, but not before the Majalan shuttle is also destroyed in the attack. However, the shuttle's passengers are safely teleported aboard Enterprise. Lest you think that Majalis is some backwoods primitive world, viewers are quickly informed that there is no disease among the Majalans. They use magical "quantum bio-implants"™ that correct any damage to a person's body at the molecular level.
Mind Control. |
Still waiting to reach the frontier... |
Episode rating: 3 brains 🧠🧠🧠. I fear that episode 6 might be as close as we come this season to actually visiting a new world of the unexplored galactic frontier and meeting interesting new aliens... although Majalis did not seem all that strange given its similarity to Ardana and let's also not forget: Pike had previously made contact with Alora. 😟 The whole "we run our city with a human brain" plot was stupid in 1968 and it is even worse in zombie resurrection mode, here in 2022.
The Call of Duty. Spock and Chapel demonstrate that they have no feelings for each other |
Astounding Asteroids. In "The Serene Squall", viewers are subjected to another absurd Hollywood asteroid belt, but there is no new world and no new aliens. For Episode 7, we get a brief glimpse of Spock's brother, Sybok who is living at a criminal rehabilitation center where T'Pring is stationed. Sybok's friend, Angel the pirate, tries to spring Sybok from the rehabilitation center by engineering a swap of Spock for Sybok, but the pirate-planned prisoner swap fails when Spock kisses Chapel.
I suppose Captain Angel was designed to be a Mudd-like character for the new century. Instead of "Mudd's Women" we got "Angel's Vulcans". The writers are struggling to deliver Strange New Worlds, so they might start a spin-off series called Strange New Pirates.
Episode 7: Angel's Vulcans. |
Pirate Perfidy. I suppose it is inevitable that both Angel and Sybok will return in future episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds because the writers don't seem interested in exploring new worlds... they'd rather engineer excuses and invent contorted plots that allow the show runners to show Spock kissing someone. Episode rating: 👎, no new world, no new aliens and too much icky gruel 🥗.
new uniforms! |
In Episode 8, "The Elysian Kingdom", there is no new world, but we did get one new alien. Sadly, this alien is yet another disembodied fantasy alien who resides inside a nebula. 👻 Success: Debra finally liberated Rukiya from the teleportation buffer. Episode rating: 👎, silly fantasy alien with magical telepathic powers. Poor Hemmer. 😟 Will he recover?
Buckley (right) |
"I'm Pike's number one." ... "No, I am." |
I was a fool to imagine that we could get through a season of Star Trek without having to deal with either Klingons or Romulans. 😔
I suppose the one alien (besides Spock) who we can expect to see in Season 2 of Strange New Worlds is Una, who Pike promised to protect, but who is arrested at the end of this episode. Most of the other "new" aliens from Season 1 (such as the Deleb) were as disposable as a random red-shirt.
Maybe since the writers have no interest in new worlds and interesting aliens, this series will be all about time travel and they'll start calling it Star Trek: Dr. Who Me Too.
Mudd's mysterious time crystal |
Alien time travel technology. |
Time Travel. How does time travel work according to the writers of Star Trek? Growing up with the original Star Trek, I got comfortable imagining that maybe time travel technology was something that only super advanced aliens would understand and use within the Star Trek universe. However, writers for Star Trek have not been able to resist the temptation to make time travel technology available to primitive humans. Are "time crystals" technology or magic?
Kellam and a research assistant. |
Harvey Lynn (educated in science and engineering) was apparently the first person with a science background who was called upon by Gene Roddenberry to provide advice for Star Trek story telling.
Other folks with science backgrounds who helped shape the science content of Star Trek include Andre Bormanis and Jesco von Puttkamer.
The Crystal Invaders |
A famous use of crystals in Hollywood is in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull where the titular crystal skulls of aliens look cool on screen and channel amazing powers. In the Star Trek fictional universe, dilithium crystals are what make possible faster than light space travel. As a measure of the popularity of crystals in Star Trek, see this list. There is no task too small or too large for a crystal, including the enigmatic "impulse deflection crystal".
cover art by Terry Pastor |
sure, that makes sense |
However, time crystals were introduced back in 2017, before Macdonald started working on Star Trek as an "technical consultant". Anthony Maranville was listed as both a technical consultant (or less grandly, as a "researcher") for the episode "The Red Angel" and as a writer. That season 2 episode of Discovery featured the idea that time travel had previously been developed by both Klingons and Section 31. "In an effort to ground the show's science fiction in actual science, he regularly consults with scientists and physicists."
will the Suliban return in SNW? |
Is it possible to make sense of time travel as depicted in the Star Trek fictional universe or is trying to do so simply a fool's errand? I'm in complete sympathy with story tellers who cannot resist constructing stories about time travel, but I'd like to believe that Star Trek is science fiction where everything happens for a reason, by using future technology, not because of magical fantasy.
Time Travel? Don't ask questions... |
It may be that some Star Trek writers grew up watching shows about the "Temporal Cold war" and then later felt a need to "explain" time travel using magical "time crystals". Maybe time travelers from the far future make sure that nobody in the primitive times of the star-ship Enterprise can understand and control time travel technology because primitive humans wielding time travel technology would only mess up the future.
As depicted in "A Quality of Mercy", Pike is given a "time crystal" that allows him to magically see the future, allowing him to change his own behavior and prevent a devastating war with the Romulans. But how does time travel by means of a time crystal work?
magical fantasy |
Magic Time. I can't explain what type of time travel it is that they were trying to depict in the final episode of season 1 SNM SNW. Was the consciousness of Pike "projected" into the future and placed into his future body? Nobody in the future seemed to notice any change in Pike's physical appearance. Was Pike's "trip to the future" only an illusion or dream? None of this was made clear, so I suppose, as is usual in Hollywood, we viewers are not supposed to ask questions. This might be an application of Clarke's 3rd law: time travel seems like magic to we primitive Earthlings.
"There’s new aliens almost every week." -Henry Alonso Myers
Spoiler: the horse works for Section 31. |
Related Reading: the chemistry of time travel
Next: the "possible worlds" of pulp Sci Fi
visit the Gallery of Movies, Book and Magazine Covers |
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