Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, 'A Case of Chiaroscuro' airs
Star Trek at its best is didactic. It's a morality play in a sci fi costume. Every good episode has something to say about humanity, about the contemporary world, about SOMETHING. Strange New Worlds has gimmicks. It's fun, sometimes, but it has nothing to say. It's hollow and facile.
Kaelyrhn 3³ ✅55In fact a lot of modern Trek has focused too much on FORM and not on FUNCTION. Disco for all its befuddlement at least tried to say something each season, and even multiple somethings. Picard's first season seemed to gesture in the vague direction of saying something before devolving into nonsense
Sara The Fat Culture Critic 🇨🇦7The thing is SNW often does have things to say; it’s frequently fatalistic, deeply conservative, pro military industrial complex, bio essentialist, and even genocide apologist. I don’t think it’s all intentional, this can happen when you don’t think about the meanings of your work.
JPWKeeper7I disagree, but let me make a comparison that is more stark. Scooby Doo. Hear me out. Scooby Doo had zero episodes that involved morality. Instead the morality was baked directly into the concept itself. Friends are everything, and can be anyone. The monster is never real. Always look for answers.
Shayne Laughter5Beginning in S3, yes. I blamed the writers' strike for forcing half-finished scripts to production. S4, it's gimmicks and aesthetics. Please, SNW, give us an *idea.*
imcured.bsky.social5Yes a lot of tv is empty calories now
kahunascott.bsky.social2In addition, it is owned by CBS Studios ("See B.S."), which is part of the fascist propaganda-pushing Paramount Skydance Corporation. Paramount has been a toxic corporate entity ever since 1967 when it acquired the original series from Desilu, but now it is far worse. I cannot support them.
Logistics, USS Enterprise3There are two examples I think of straight off where SNW had something really cool to say and spectacularly missed the mark. Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot reach had some amazing uncomfortable questions but needed room to breathe (and Pike not losing half his IQ). 100% needed to be a two parter.
Bill Mudron3Yeah. Kurtzman & co. seemed to take people enjoying the first season of S1 (in a way that Discovery was never loved) as a license to double down on the dumb/fun silliness, and now SNW has turned into nothing but pandering surface-level gimmicks.
Kaelyrhn 3³ ✅2Funnily enough, I wrote this not as a direct criticism of the latest Strange New Worlds, which I hadn't even seen into tonight. I keep forgetting they're even airing, which is a fucking dire state of affairs. Me, life long obsessive Trek fan, forgetting the new eps of the currently airing series 🫤
Alex M2I keep thinking SNW would be more interesting if the moral issues they brought up happened halfway through the episode instead of in the last 5 minutes.
Lee Burton - Author | Editor2There's an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Cordelia wishes Buffy never existed. The whole show is gimmicky, like OOH THINGS ARE DIFFERENT. ie: Willow and Xander are vampires. Now imagine a whole sequel series following hammy alt vampire Xander. Anyway, this is a post about new Star Trek.
Shayne Laughter2This is a meaningful breakdown.
Question for any other #StarTrek reviewers this week: How many times did you check the spelling of 'Chiaroscuro'? 🙃
Thad7More than I can count.
denartha.bsky.social5I work in Vulnerability Management, I type the word vulnerability about 80 times a day, and I have to check it every time. It doesn't instill a lot of confidence in a client when they receive a vulnernability report. I think you are forgiven for checking the spelling of Chiaroscuro.
An August Corey 👑 🏳️🌈3Seems like a black and white question.
Daimon3Haha I did and I was in the episode 😅
Nomen Luni2I'm not a reviewer but, thanks to an album by a relatively unknown band called 'I Break Horses', I don't have to. Chiaroscuro.
Cassandra (عَلِمَ)2Thought about it, but didn't. Lol
(Hits blunt) What if we just made "The Wizard of Oz" with the Strange New Worlds cast? Like, Ortegas crashes a shuttle on the Wicked Witch's sister? And the witch turns Pike into the lion, Una into the scarecrow and Scotty into the Tin Man?
Starfleet Design 🖍🖖22There's a non-zero chance they've already shot this episode!
Trekkie Bill 🖖🏻19Also, La'an is obviously the wicked witch because everyone descended from Augments has the Evil Gene. And Pelia is the Wizard.
PghNerfHerder12“What if we did science fiction?” “You’re fired.”
trekdad6I mean I would watch the shit out of that… 🖖 😶🌫️ 🌪️
FormerGregSamsa5I haven't watched this season, admittedly, but it does seem like they're just speedrunning all the holodeck eps from ST:TNG at once.
Valis_KR34I kinda like this idea, but it makes the ending of your concept and the movie with Judy Garland that much more of a letdown. "you could go home at any time." "Really!?" "that's right all you had to do is push the button on your communicator." 
Bill Mudron39The sad thing is that it’s entirely possible this could be an upcoming episode, squeezed between the Doctor Who crossover and the stop-motion animated Christmas special.
Sonya 🕊️3My take: Auntie Em: Una Uncle _____: Pike Dorothy: Spock Lion: La'an Tinman: Uhura Scarecrow: James Kirk Toto: Ortegas (moves the story forward) Wizard: Pelia Witches: Actual aliens having conflict over shoes
Did I enjoy Strange New Worlds film noir episode? Why yes, yes I did. Am I going to be thinking about it in a year? Nope, probably not. And that's alright. In this topsy-turvy world, I eek out joy from wherever I can these days.
Humanist Trek Podcast8I appreciate this more than you know! Bsky is overflowing with SNW hate, sadly.
SteamDeckMatthe2I really liked this episode. Looking forward to the Muppet episode also
Sarah Walker2I want so much to see a shitload of behind-the-scenes/production info on this ep because I want to see the costumes and sets in living color, learn how lighting setups changed for the end result, inspo for all of the aforementioned, all the technical work poured into this ep
Gordie Discovery Fan🏴☠️🇬🇧🇨🇦🇵🇱🇺🇦1I personally enjoyed it but I didn't connect with it as much as the first 3 episodes of season 4. I knew the references & they were well performed. Still an improvement on parts of season 3. I am however really interested in La'ans story going forward.
Eco Trekkie (he/him)1I enjoyed this one. Probably my favorite of the season so far.
King of the Vagabonds 🇹🇼1A good comment I read elsewhere said the only thing that would have improved the episode would have been some instance where they used a light that revealed color on the planet showing everyone had blue skin or something to better explain the resemblance.
NEW! We return to our fun “abstract series” in which we get deep into everything we love about #StarTrek and this week it’s all about “Abstract Phaser Blasts!” (We have no idea what it means either! Which makes this episode even more fun than you can imagine!)💥🔫 🔊 www.trekranks.com/trekranks-podcast
Chris 🟡🟡🟡🟡6Can’t wait to be stunned by brilliance of this episode!
The Pun-isher 💀65. Voyager gag reel, Tim Russ exaggerated phaser blast scene from “Worst Case Scenario” 4. “I just asked for a little off the top!” “Silent Enemy” 3. I thought for a second they might have actually killed off Quark “Necessary Evil” 2. Quark again “Profit and Loss”
Joshua Reeve5La’An shooting Una for Enterprise Bingo seems like a good candidate!
Anika Dane 4Yay! Can’t wait to hear
CraigM17014Do not be late again #PenaltyBox - Calica weapons in Vitus Reflux Simply got in the way #M5Malfunction? - Harper gets vaporised in The Ultimate Computer Literally takes your breath away #MostUnderratedVillains - Vidiian organ harvesting weapons in Phage
Melanie3Great topic! Can’t wait to hear it! The first one off the top of my head is one of my favorite moments in Voyager. “Deadlock”: Dupe Harry Kim’s heroic hero roll and phaser shot against the Vidiian in sickbay to save baby Naomi! So freaking cool! 😀💥
#StarTrekSNW "Author Of The Mind" Pike and Spock are captured and forced to work on a world that resembles pre-awakening Vulcan. Ortegas pogo stick rally ends tragically when a repair team detours the contestants to deck 7½. Kruge: Michael Shannon.
![A partial clipping from an old TV Guide reads as follows:
son Kal-El (Keanu Reeves) to Earth where he is raised by a brood of vampires who use his blood powers to hunt the worst of humanity.
7 PM channel 13 STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS(CC)—Science Fiction; 60 min.
Pike and Spock are captured and forced to work on a world that resembles pre-awakening Vulcan. Ortegas pogo stick rally ends tragically when a repair team detours the contestants to deck 7½. Kruge: Michael Shannon.
[SCI] MOVIE(CC)—Action; 2 hrs.
“Live Free Or Ben Hur.” Nicolas Cage. Tommy](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:yulpnkidj3dkdip5ma3c3ssn/bafkreiasxgeywl5q5faeiikf63bsucjdkctjixnyjzfu3fucqs2ndz47vm)
Spock Here3The final chariot race pits Nicholas Cage against his arch-nemesis played by John Travolta, except through an ancient Egyptian curse they've switched bodies. Hilarious hijinks ensue.
terrylong.bsky.social2The Keanu Reeves vampire Dexter Superman movie sounds like a banger.
Chrissie De Clerck-Szilagyi1Attn @mw207.bsky.social ! This is the account we told you about :)
Captain Kirk’s empathy, which gets lost in the Kirk Drift of his pop culture image. But STRANGE NEW WORLDS and the Reboot films got it. Through Shatner’s Kirk and Superman, I learned the importance of empathy and helping others.
TrekRanks =/\= EnterpriseExtra3So good. These people missing on #SNW because they've decided in their own mind's eye what it is and now can't see the forest through the trees. It's kind of sad. This scene is as much what SNW is as the genre of the week. This kind of scene is everywhere in SNW. "Lost in Translation" is epic Trek.
Christiana Ellis1Agreed completely. Having just finished a re-watch of TOS, I am struck once again by how the cliches about the character are really pretty often off-base. They miss the compassion, and also that he's frankly a bit of a nerd. (Not that he can't turn on the charm at will.)
Enjoy your Saturday, #StarTrek friends! Sarek was so disappointed that the Vulcan embassies on all major UFP worlds knew about this within the week and the computer was enshrined in a museum. #StarTrekDiscovery #StarTrekMemes Sybok wondered if he'd ever see his father again. Spock hoped he wouldn't.
