Star Trek Social Club

I knew I'd have a good time with this one. I'd heard we were getting a horror themed episode directed by someone who worked on The Haunting of Hill House, which is one of my favourite horror projects from the past decade. (Checking Google now, and I see it was actually Bly Manor. Close enough.)

You can certainly see the same approach at play, and I thought it was very fun to see in Trek. I also loved the nods to other sci-fi horror, including that one scene in TNG Night Terrors that really hit hard when I was 7.

I feel like a bit more backstory on the Griffen might have been nice. She was the last ship built in the Pyris shipyards, which mined its ore from an ancient alien graveyard, and all ships built there met a bad end. Or something better than that. But I see those in this thread unhappy that it wasn't all explained with the sci-fi equivalent of a gas leak, so maybe the simple mystery approach is a good compromise.

Apart from the horror of it all, some nice character work, with Kirk being the stand out. Nice to see his early relationship with Carol. Or lack thereof. I wonder if they'll ever have occasion to cast her or if she'll be forever offscreen.

This was a very creepy episode, and as a standalone sci fi fantasy horror piece it works well. But it doesn't feel trek. Here's my conspiracy: With the dramatic different in tone, direction, the repeated references to section 12, this is a Poorly Disguised Pilot that the producers were using to test the waters for an x-files like section 12 spinoff.

Overall, I did not enjoy it. I don't seek out this kind of film normally, and I might have enjoyed it if it had led to anything interesting happening, but ultimately it has not left them with any further progress. All the dramatic moments between the away team and the "others" they hallucinated were basically "then they woke up and it was all a dream", so no relationship progress there. And within themselves, aside from more unresolved trauma, Spock seems no closer to aligning his human and vulcan selves, La'an hasn't really learned anything new about her violent tendencies she didn't already know from the last episode, and Kirk never even got to have the chat with his family because the network apparently cut out.

Well, saw the episode. But all the going for shock and eek and ick didn't really impress, especially when the story basically has no resolution other than "beats us shrug".

Just like the 1st episode, I'm of two minds with this one.

It's like all the bits are good, but the whole is lacking.

That was a crazy episode, super strong start to the season

In today's episode of UNHOLSTER YOUR FUCKING SIDEARM.

Spooky? Yes. Trek? Maybe the shit kind. 1/10

Added nothing to my life.

"The Enterprise crew encounters a phenomenon that forces them to face their innermost fears" is very well-trodden ground for this series, but this is probably one of the best examples. It coasts on a very well-executed horror story, and I thought it did a very good job in not tipping its hand as to which characters were real, and which were hallucinations.

Unfortunately, I don't think the stories of our two main characters were advanced much, if it all. La'An is still afraid there's a monster within her, and Spock still has issues with his duality, though this episode could mark the shift of his return to a more "Vulcan" way of being.

I thought the episode handled Kirk really well, though. From the moment they acknowledged that David was going to play a role in the series going forward, I had pretty high hopes - there are a lot of blanks to be filled in, since he was retconned into Kirk's backstory in 1982. Kirk's fears of being an absentee father, and of dying in some forgotten corner of space, feel very real, and I think they would feel real even if you didn't know how it's all going to turn out for him.

I thought the scene between Kirk and Uhura at the end was very...interesting. Not sure what to say about it, but it was interesting.

Annotations for 4x02 are up at: https://startrek.website/post/42835945

I'm a little disappointed whatever was going on wasn't explained with some kind of technobabble at the end. That doesn't seem very Star Trekkie to me.