Hegemony, Part II
Written by: Davy Perez
Story by: Henry Alonso Myers & Davy Perez
Directed by: Chris Fisher
Wedding Bell Blues
Written by: Kirsten Beyer & David Reed
Directed by: Jordan Canning
Let’s be honest: Who else had forgotten about the Gorn cliffhanger?
I didn’t like the first episode very much. The Enterprise saves the Universe from some overpowering enemy all by themselves is too much of a trope for me. Also too many characters on the edge of dying, but nobody dies. Some story arks even culminate in the decision to just do nothing…
(Also why has sickbay a “quarantine mode” instead of a proper quarantine?)
So um, La’An teaching Spock to dance… 🥵
Also: John de Lancie is the voice of Trelane’s dad?! OMG!
I really like this slightly more chill La’an. John de Lancie was not expected. So If Trelane is now implied to be Q jr, is this episode supposed to take place before we see him in Voyagers Q2? He does come off as more of an immature teen in voyager, whereas in this and in TOS he’s quite more childish, especially when he’s challenged in both Trelane episodes.
It has been confirmed. That was Q and Trelane. Trelane is Q’s son. Trelane is not Q Jr. https://blog.trekcore.com/2025/07/interview-star-trek-strange-new-worlds-s3-myers-goldsman-showrunners/
that’s what i recognized! I was asking if it was the Q for half of the episode
When he started snapping to change things I was like oh, okay, I see what this is. I think Trelane did that too, but it became such a trademark of Q that it was hard to ignore the similarity. And then the voice was just delicious icing on the cake. They didn’t make a big deal of it or make some weird tortured commentary to try and tie it into continuity. They just let it be as a story on its own.
Hegemony, Part II
I appreciated the continued exploration of the Gorn as a truly alien alien species. All the stuff with their different sensory modes, and solar-associated life cycles, is a lot of fun to me.
It also seems like they’ve written the Gorn off as a going concern, which I think is fine. This is a good place to leave it until “Arena” - they even added some dialogue about the various Gorn stories being somewhat vague, so there’s some wiggle room for them to seem a little different when they’re encountered again in the future.
They managed to film the AR wall in a way that didn’t just seem like a round room, which I appreciate.
Wedding Bell Blues
Give this show all the makeup and costuming awards immediately.
It was a fun romp, and I always like it when two opposing characters have to team up against the universe. I could have done with more dancing at the end - it seems like the actors put in a lot of work for a fairly brief scene.
I’ve never been a big fan of drawing a connection between Trelane and the Q, so I’m glad neither was mentioned by name (Edit: I think…?).
Please give me a Sam Kirk spinoff that runs for 50 years.
Nothing here has disprove my theory that Batel has died and Pike is hallucinating.
The entire series is set in a snow globe on Sam Kirk’s mantle, in the home where he lives to be 147.
I was impressed with their restraint in not mentioning either Trelane or Q by name. I mean they dressed the entity in the same costume as Trelane, and his behavior and MO are identical, so we’re clearly meant to conclude they are one and the same. But they didn’t burden the story with continuity, and that’s smart.
Did they swap La’an’s and Erica’s characters? Now Erica has Gorn PTSD and La’an is the easygoing one? At least the latter seemed like a very abrupt character development.
And can the SNW costume designers finally get an Emmy Award please? Or all the awards for that matter? The costumes in this series have been amazing since day 1, and the second episode (particularly the wedding scene) is no exception.
Also, that cameo at the end was chef’s kiss.
One of the writers talked about it on Open Pike Night and said it was a deliberate choice to give La’an and Erica opposite trajectories from last season, where now La’an is finally able to move on from her trauma with the Gorn while Erica is dealing with it for the first time.
I do look forward to seeing Erika do more than just “Fly the ship,” but I really wish it was literally anything other than the exact same thin La’an has been dealing with. She’s talked about being on the Klingon front a lot, why not tie it into that. I do like seeing a slightly more chill La’an and really think her and Spock pair together well as friends, but I do hope they don’t throw in more romance at spock with her.
I’m not really looking forward to another season of Gorn PTSD. We just did that with La’an. We don’t need to rehash it. It’s boring.
Time will tell if they justify it.
I did love the costumes in this episode, although I also felt like they were a little too present-day. But if they’re playing Wham I guess that’s what they were going for.
This was a good mix to start with - a serious episode and a fun silly one.
The first acts as a really good introduction for Scotty, giving him a chance to build up his character with some insurmountable engineering problems that, with some coaching, he surmounts. The second is a nice way to round off Spock and Chapel’s relationship, poking fun at the mess that following the canon has left us in, using Trelane as a stand-in for the fans.
various thoughts on the plot:
- Ortegas seems to have been left with a bit of trauma, being part digested will do that to you I guess. Hopefully La’an will spot this and help out.
- Una mentions a “couple of litres” of blood. Did she mean pints, and the writers did a find/replace to make it metric and more futurey? Because “a couple of litres” is a lot.
- Camera spin continues to be a big part of the visual language. It gives me a headache and I have to close my eyes whenever they do this. There were quite a few instances of roll in the first episode that were a bit too much for me.
- John de Lancie and Rhys Darby make the perfect duo for these characters.
- Scotty mentions not drinking, but ends up having to take some when he eats something dodgy at the batchelor party. Previously (later?) Scotty has been shown to be a fan of drink, I guess now it’s canon that had there not been alien interference, he may have always been teetotal.
- While Chapel is dealing with Batel, the Gorn hatchlings seem to agitate when the ship first goes close to the binary stars. Then, at the end of the episode when the ship has been suspended between the stars for a long time, no real mention is made of this. I guess the blood infusions and operations just kind of negated all that? Feels like Chekov’s gun got loaded and then forgotten about.
While Chapel is dealing with Batel, the Gorn hatchlings seem to agitate when the ship first goes close to the binary stars.
I think it was a CME that got the hatchlings agitated, not getting close to the stars.
Una mentions a “couple of litres” of blood. Did she mean pints, and the writers did a find/replace to make it metric and more futurey? Because “a couple of litres” is a lot.
This is months after the previous episode. I think the implication was that Una had been steadily donating blood so they can study it and/or have a stockpile for emergencies. It makes sense
as long as they avoid the “hey everyone, magic blood is the cure for death” crap from the second JJ movie.
Why didn’t they just put Batel in the medical transporter’s pattern buffer, like M’Benga did with his daughter?
I’m sure it wouldn’t work for <insert technobabble reason here>, but this is the unfortunate consequence of treating it so casually in season one…
So, this makes 5 different Star Trek series where John De Lancie has appeared as Q (if we’re taking Akiva Goldsman’s offscreen confirmation).
Doesn’t that put him in a tie with Jonathan Frakes as Riker?
