Well, they teased it as a possible MASSIVE INVASION in s1, then promptly dropped it as even a worry until now. While I appreciate a more episodic show, they could have been laying more groundwork, I think.
Ep 9 was fun! The actress who plays Uhura is the only one I know of who can actually sing because most of the actors didn't seem like it was their real voices except for Spock. The reason for the singing was keeping in line with any "malfunction" Trek has. I liked it. Not the best but it was enjoyable.
Good break down (in the comments) of Spock/Chapel in TOS and how this season puts it in a very different light and explains how Spock went from “smiley Spock” in The Cage to the emotionless Spock in TOS.
I find it amusing how folks obsess over Spock and his "vulcan-ness" as if there is ANY damned sense to it.
There isn't, what traits are genetic versus cultural is vague at best, what role his human side genes versus maternal influence play into it, all if it is silly and reinvented as needed.
Besides, we know the chapel thing goes nowhere. Personally, I'd rather see the start of the bond between Spock and Kirk, or just more of Spock and Pike. Does Spock just have a thing about his ship captain? Is he a sub? How does Una play into the relationship? She is much too slight a personality to be a second in command IMHO, especially given how hands off Pike seems to be.
There isn't, what traits are genetic versus cultural is vague at best, what role his human side genes versus maternal influence play into it, all if it is silly and reinvented as needed.
It’s not vague at all and only talked about 10,000 times in Star Trek. There’s nothing generic about it at all. Hell even Spock has explained that Vulcan emotions are stronger than humans, but the culture suppresses them. That was a big storyline in Enterprise too.
I thought it was highly entertaining. I was in stitches several times. It was so much better than the usual filler episodes on a runaway holodeck, going back to costume drama periods or other recycled episodes we have gotten across various trek seasons.
I'd rather watch Spock sing than Burnham crying any day.
It’s not vague at all and only talked about 10,000 times in Star Trek. There’s nothing generic about it at all. Hell even Spock has explained that Vulcan emotions are stronger than humans, but the culture suppresses them. That was a big storyline in Enterprise too.
It's totally genetic if making Spock "all human" somehow frees him from all his emotional control. It being a "Vulcan Philosophy" that anyone theoretically could learn versus it being a trait unique to Vulcans is absolutely flip flopped all across Star Trek.
All this Star Trek goodness got me to try out the Star Trek Resurgence game. While I see the forced "lesser of two evils" delimmas typical of these TT type games already, I'm enjoying it so far. Funny that a female character gets mad that a male character DIDN'T do the chauvinist thing and let her go first out of danger. Damned nu-trek led me to the wrong decision!!!! gotta get my Kirk hat on!
I loved the last song. Most didn't hit like they should have but "I'm the X" and Klingon K-pop and La'an's song and the finale all hit the right notes for me auditory-ily and emotionally.
All this Star Trek goodness got me to try out the Star Trek Resurgence game. While I see the forced "lesser of two evils" delimmas typical of these TT type games already, I'm enjoying it so far. Funny that a female character gets mad that a male character DIDN'T do the chauvinist thing and let her go first out of danger. Damned nu-trek led me to the wrong decision!!!! gotta get my Kirk hat on!
I will have to say that it's sort of a missed opportunity not to have Robert Picardo guest star on the singing episode. He's actually an accomplished and professional singer. You remember the episode of Voyager where he was singing and that alien race wanted him on their planet so he can perform for them? Well that was actually him singing. I think he does a lot of Italian opera.
I will have to say that it's sort of a missed opportunity not to have Robert Picardo guest star on the singing episode. He's actually an accomplished and professional singer. You remember the episode of Voyager where he was singing and that alien race wanted him on their planet so he can perform for them? Well that was actually him singing. I think he does a lot of Italian opera.
So, the singing ep. Yet ANOTHER super character relationship focused show with "the anomaly" playing a C plot. Should call this Star Trek: Strange New Insecurities for how much it obsessed about "will they wont they" dynamics.
If this was a TOS or TNG ep then I think we would have had a muzltplik type singing leprechaun character represent the anomaly, trying to break down barriers between people through singing and the CAPTAIN could show that humans need oricavy of thought. Or hell, even as it was, maybe Uhura, seeing how often folks hide what they really mean, WANTS this phenomenon to continue because she thinks it would help society. You know, debate a SCI-FI CONCEPT on this "sci-fi" show. Given the neurallink and the possibilities it raises, as well as social media allowing folks to spout off 'anonymously', you'd think this ep would have been a golden opportunity to weigh in.
But clearly the writers aren't interested in sci-fi, its just dressing for more character drama. Hopefully they get this out of their system.
Side note, simultaneously saying it "takes weeks" for messages to cross the federation, yet having James Kirk pop up randomly at the edge of federation space again and again and Pike able to chit chat in real time, makes the universe feel very small. And why was Kirk doing all the engineering on this ep anyway?
Also, about Kirk.
did he know about Carol's pregnancy in Wrath of Kahn? I dont recall if she explained it away somehow or he never knew
Anyway, that was a good wrap up to that relationship, maybe La'an doesn't get fridged after all.
But Hottie McSpaceLawyer, SHE IS TOAST! 100% that "top priority mission" gets her eaten by the Gorn.
I loved the last song. Most didn't hit like they should have but "I'm the X" and Klingon K-pop and La'an's song and the finale all hit the right notes for me auditory-ily and emotionally.
Anyway, I guess zoomer writers like K-pop so they're doing K-pop? And just ignoring that the Klingons already have some well-established music of their own... and by even the silly logic of the subspace resonator musical generator there would be no reason for them to do something irrelevant to their culture. If they wanted it to make sense, and it's Star Trek, not Space Magic Fantasy Hour, so it should make an effort to make sense.. they could have had the anomaly ingest the computer's musical archives or something... or have something about Klingons salvaging K-pop from a destroyed ship during the war and thinking "holy shit this is amazing" (I'm not endorsing either of these things, just pointing out that it's not that hard to get there within the confines of the actual sci-fi universe we're dealing with)
The Klingons should have been singing in Klingon, subtitled, like warriors, about a glorious quest of destroying the anomaly.
Anyway, I guess zoomer writers like K-pop so they're doing K-pop? And just ignoring that the Klingons already have some well-established music of their own... and by even the silly logic of the subspace resonator musical generator there would be no reason for them to do something irrelevant to their culture. If they wanted it to make sense, and it's Star Trek, not Space Magic Fantasy Hour, so it should make an effort to make sense.. they could have had the anomaly ingest the computer's musical archives or something... or have something about Klingons salvaging K-pop from a destroyed ship during the war and thinking "holy shit this is amazing" (I'm not endorsing either of these things, just pointing out that it's not that hard to get there within the confines of the actual sci-fi universe we're dealing with)
The Klingons should have been singing in Klingon, subtitled, like warriors, about a glorious quest of destroying the anomaly.
But did you miss when Uhura sent "the great American songbook" through the subspace fold? It was a specific human musical experience. Not music from the galaxy over.
Although I find it odd that every song was mostly musical inspired and not all different genres... Except for the Kling-Pop ... But maybe different genres for every ship it affected.
But did you miss when Uhura sent "the great American songbook" through the subspace fold? It was a specific human musical experience. Not music from the galaxy over.
But did you miss when Uhura sent "the great American songbook" through the subspace fold? It was a specific human musical experience. Not music from the galaxy over.
Although I find it odd that every song was mostly musical inspired and not all different genres... Except for the Kling-Pop ... But maybe different genres for every ship it affected.
I didn't miss that at all. She didn't send the "Great American Songbook" in its entirety, which by the way doesn't include K-pop. She posited (crap I'm doing Spock-talk now) that "subspace" might be a fan of it, and proceeded to play a few bars of one song, from said songbook, "Anything Goes". The anomaly goes nuts. The song stops playing, and a few seconds later Spock is singing Broadway.
The fact that she sent one and only one song is reinforced in the following scenes when they go full technobabble with all the quantum nonsense, and Spock asks about the exact "frequency" of the song she sent through. I guess I didn't notice if all the songs were in the same key or not (I'm not Riker, I don't have perfect pitch all of a sudden for no reason), but if they were that would have actually been a nice bit of attention to detail.
So the GAS doesn't really explain the genre-swap, and the only logical conclusion is that while suckling at the teet of Mami Bigguns he overheard some showtunes, because apparently she is into showtunes, and then Sarek comes around and smacks his child-bride because he hates showtunes and humans. It doesn't take that much imagination to make it work.
Even better is if in previous episodes, or just at the start of this episode (had a fucking full hour plus of runtime, pretty sure they could have squeezed it in), would be to have Captain Metrosexual hosting movie night on the projector, and have 'em do some musicals to prime the crew to sing in that style.
I made myself watch the musical episode. It was cringe but it could have redeemed itself if the final song they sing was from the Enterprise theme. Completely missed opportunity there.
I made myself watch the musical episode. It was cringe but it could have redeemed itself if the final song they sing was from the Enterprise theme. Completely missed opportunity there.