(Why is this the real deal, where "Picard" and "Discovery" fail? It took three tries to get out of abrams' shadow? Regress klingons to "evil subhumyns", DSC? Violence porn of seven committing murder, PIC?? But mostly because SNW is more story/character-based. How it looks is not more important than what it IS.)
FOUR-STAR EPISODES: 0
AVERAGE EPISODE RATING: 2.9
-Strange New Worlds ***
After seeing a vision of his future mutilation/incapacitation (as portrayed in TOS), captain christopher pike reluctantly returns to service to save his first officer from captivity, after a botched first contact. He must convince a warring world accidentally given Federation technology, to not destroy themselves. We meet young spock, chapel, m'benga, and uhura, plus a descendant of khan, an aenar engineer, samuel kirk, and sparky helmsperson ortegas. Powerful and poignant, with great chemistry. Pike accepts a five-year voyage of exploration.
-Children of the Comet ***
Cadet uhura is thrust to the fore as Enterprise discovers an artificial comet on course to destroy a populated world. Enterprise is imperiled by an alien ship who revere the comet as a god. Nyota discovers the comet's autopilot tech is based on a musical language.
-Ghost of Illyria ***
Researching a planet once populated by a genetically-engineered race, the ship fights an infection that renders people mindless slaves to light, while pike and spock are trapped on the surface in an ion storm. They discover the illyrians may have mutated into a benevolent plasma-based lifeform. To save the crew with the antibodies in her blood, number one reveals that she herself is illyrian, outlawed by the Federation.
-Memento Mori ***
After finding survivors of an alien attack, security chief la'an noonien-singh identifies the attackers as gorn, whose ships reappear and attack. La'an was the sole survivor of a gorn attack as a child, and has never shaken survivor's guilt. A crippled Enterprise flies into the atmosphere of a brown dwarf, where all four ships become sensor-blind.
-Spock Amok ***
On shore leave with his fiance t'pring, spock switches bodies with her in a mindmeld ritual gone wrong. His presence is suddenly required in delicate diplomatic negotiations. It's freaky friday...but it works.
-Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach ***
Pike is reunited with an old flame (which reignites) on a non-Federation planet. He discovers a child-sacrifice element of their culture, and his prime directive beliefs are sorely tested.
-The Serene Squall ***
Transporting a Starfleet counselor, Enterprise plunges deep into pirate territory in response to a distress call. After Enterprise is boarded and commandeered, the counselor is revealed as the pirate captain (who rather easily manipulated spock's emotions). She demands a prisoner exchange, to release her lover from vulcan captivity. T'pring, a security planet administrator, agrees...but spock and chapel pretend to have an affair, requiring spock to break off his engagement. It sounds corny, but it works, thanks to an understated guest performance by jesse james keitel (BIG SKY, QUEER AS FOLK).
-The Elysian Kingdom **
M'benga's daughter has a fatal disease, and is illegally kept in a sickbay transporter buffer while he searches for a cure. He materializes her occasionally, to read her favorite fairy tale. A non-corporeal nebula alien takes over the consciousnesses of the crew, casting them as characters in the fairy tale. M'benga sees through the ruse, and finally contacts the alien with the help of engineer hemmer (bruce horak - TRANSPLANT, IN THE DARK), whose telepathic abilities make him immune. The alien just wants to protect the child, whom it thinks is being abused. This one might have been three-star if the fairy tale sequences were more cinematic and less stagey...or maybe the real flaw is psychological. To accept that m'benga would so quickly give away his daughter to an almost completely unknown alien, is an enormous premise to swallow.
-All Those Who Wander ***
Enterprise responds to a distress call from USS Peregrine, which has crashed on an ice planet. An away team discovers the only survivors are two refugees, one of whom dies as four gorn hatchlings burst from his body. The team fights the terrifying hatchlings, who are also killing each other for alpha status. The best episode of the season, in part due to the sacrificial death of hemmer, who becomes infected.
-A Quality of Mercy ***
Pike meets a child whose life he will one day save in the disaster that will leave him mutilated and paralyzed. He decides to change those events, and is visited by a future version of himself, who shows him the catastrophes that will be unleashed by his actions, as he will still be in command of Enterprise during the events of TOS' "Balance of Terror". Those events play out, but war with the romulans is not averted, due to the differing command styles of kirk and pike. Kirk (paul wesley - THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, WOLF LAKE) appears, giving aid as captain of the Farragut. In this vision of the future, spock also dies. Back in the present, Starfleet arrests number one for concealing her illyrian identity.
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