Strange New Worlds S2-E9 "Subspace Rhapsody" Warning may contain spoilers.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120940025#Comment_120940025

Yesterday we had 2 songs about being lonely, a song about breaking up with someone, a song about being broken up with, a song about maybe breaking up and then everyone had to hold hands and sing a big song together.

Outside of Burnham it was pretty fekin Discovery.

They really don't know what to do with Ortegas. Her song was literally her whole character.

" I am the pilot, I fly the ship, I sit in the pilot seat" 🤣 (might not be the exact words)

Bloody hell you really don't like that people like this show

flazio

Mr Worf, are you familiar with Gilbert & Sullivan?

ItHurtsWhenIP

I'm not a musical fan ... AT ALL ... as I find listening to song lyrics, which are part of the actual dialogue to be difficult for me. When I listen to music, I tend to focus more on the instrumental and rhythm rather than the lyrics, which I tend to tune out.

So that was kind of a difficult watch because I missed so much dialogue. I'll need to re-watch and force myself to focus on the lyrics.

Having said that, musically the cast were good to excellent and they carried off all the moves in a very musical way. I thought Uhura and Spock were head and shoulders above the rest. I see others mention Christina Chong having a singing career on the side, but I thought she was one of the weaker voices. The very end of the big finale felt very "real", with the chatter amongst the cast after the rift disappeared. It was nice to see that they enjoyed it.

Not Kirk has dis-improved again - I didn't think much of him this episode.

The great shame of Klingon BTS was freakin hilarious. My dogs jumped when I roared with laughter.

I'll decide what I think of this after a rewatch when I've figured out everything that was said (sang), but I think it will be reasonably positive.

squonk

God I think people are too negative on here. SNW is far, far removed from discovery. I’ve watched a fair bit of Star Trek over the years and had the chance to watch much of it first time it was shown. SNW feels to me very much like proper trek. I don’t find myself making excuses for it and absolutely don’t feel Like I’m only watching it because it’s on. I’d say that about Discovery and Picard. In fact Discovery I literally just stopped watching. It was that bad.

I wasn’t crazy about the musical and only liked it more than than the Lower Decks episode. All the ST shows have had their stupid non-core-trek episodes. Off the top of my head I can think of that TNG Q Robin Hood episode, and the TOS episode with the space hippies who nearly took over the ship. TNG had several more and season 3 of TOS is pretty dreadful relative to the first two.

With ten episode seasons you really feel the effect of a poor or filler episode though. With the old 22 episode seasons you could let a few filler or downright bad episodes slide because there was still enough room for great episodes. This season of SNW we’ve taken a big hit because we’re down 3 episodes lost to whims. The La’an/Kirk time travel episode was a bottle ep and then they awful lower decks crossover and now the musical. For the crossover and musical I felt the characters were out of whack. It’s all just more self indulgence on behalf of the showrunners than anything else. Ultimately we’re left with 7 episodes of a 10 episode season to give us what we actually want. I’d probably tolerate these more if they were treated as specials and we weren’t sacrificing valuable season episodes for it.

I’ll still watch SNW though. I’ve sat through enough bad trek to know when it’s good.

corkie

Has anyone come across a link to a site with the lyrics?

Best I found is this where they take out quotes:-

https://www.geekgirlauthority.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-subspace-rhapsody-season-2-episode-9-quotes/

santana75

This makes "Fair Haven" look like The Godfather

CastorTroy

Has Ortegas had an episode to herself yet? She seems to be the only one left we know very little about. Uhura has saved the day twice this season and Think all we got for Ortegas is she was disappointed at not being able to go on a mission.

corkie

and it's perhaps noteworthy that Ortegas has been the character to get the least spotlight and substance all season.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120940240#Comment_120940240

If you mean me I really like this show.

I'm just critical of it when I think its bad.

ixoy

I liked it but didn't love it. A few of the cast are talented singers but I think they missed a chance by not switching the types of songs sung a bit more (other than the Klingon K-Pop moment which I enjoyed for its extreme insanity). This was pretty much 'Schmigadoon! in Space' (AppleTV's show where they self-aware burst into song to discuss their emotions) but 'Schmigadoon!' has more different song types.

In terms of one-offs (and yes it should just be a one off) other shows have incorporated musical numbers better IMO. Yes, there's the often cited 'Once More With Feeling' but, for my money, 'Xena: Warrior Princess' tied in strong musical numbers and character arcs better in 'The Bitter Suite' (3 years before Buffy for that matter).

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120940273#Comment_120940273

This episode very much seemed like the seasons "holodeck" episode much like the fairytale one last year.

Personally I loved the Lower Decks episode but I get why non LD fans don't.

One I would add to your list is the one with T'Pring which had boring Spock related hijinks and Chapel saves the day by getting emotional with an alien about Spock.

Im happiest when the show leaves personal stuff behind and deals with the sci-fi problem at hand. This season really hasn't hit Children of the Comet or the episode with the child sacrifice levels of last season.

expectationlost

I don't like musicals and loved that. I thought the songs were good. It was hilarious.

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120940596#Comment_120940596

I am not sure if that is good or bad.

If I had a choice between this and the Fair Haven episode do I would pick this.

Evade

Ye wouldn't be besmirching the good people a Fairhaven now, would ye?

spookwoman

Sweet mother of jesus that was f*cking torture and the worst tv I have ever watched. It's has to have knocked the Star Wars holiday special off the top slot.

have to laugh though at Paramount trying to compair the few other times in Star Trek episodes when someone has sang a song. There is absolutly no comparison to a one off song or even a wild west episode to this monstrosity.

a_squirrelman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120941573#Comment_120941573

"worst tv I have ever watched" ah come on now, it's still better than Discovery.

spookwoman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120941987#Comment_120941987

Nope, still worse than any Discovery episode.

a_squirrelman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120941996#Comment_120941996

Fair enough, I quite enjoyed it.

liamtech

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120934829#Comment_120934829

Easily the worst Episode of Strange New worlds - I think i would call this the first real stinker for the show - it was half funny at times, and the boy-band-bit was funny and cringe in equal measures - IMHO

I havent posted much for this season but i have enjoyed it thus far - i think its slightly weaker than season one - again IMHO

easily the worst episode of Star Trek of any series ever and that includes the cod-Irish episode in Voyager - Quote from above

Not my intention to start a debate on this topic, and i agree with you RE your point on Discovery - However i think its a slight stretch to say this is the worst episode of the franchise - for two reasons

• Musical fans may have enjoyed it - and there are some who will credit this as a high point - i think a true 'Worst of Worst' merits universal dismay

• Secondly - i can think of at least ten worse trek outings - and when i compare these, to this weeks SNW, i would take the musical nonsense in a heart beat - i will put my money where my mouth is, to see if anyone agrees, or disagrees

My 10 worst of the worst in descending order to the 'ultimate stinker'

10 - Star Trek Into Darkness - Despite my having excised it from my own view of the franchise, i found this abomination insulting to Trek, and in particular, to Wraith of Khan -

9 - DS9 - Let he who is without sin - Almost vindicated by Jadzia's Risen outfit - Almost

8 - Enterprise - These Are the Voyages - To give some credit here, the writers have acknowledged how bad this was so -

7 - Voyager - Threshold - Made zero sense - the only joy i extract is the various send offs people have done, notable chuck over on SFDEBRIS

6 - Next Generation - Sub Rosa - It still baffles me what they were actually going for with this episode

5 - Voyager - Once upon a time - Neelix tells kids stories - cringe

4 - Voyager - Spirit Folk/Fair haven - two part abomination correctly cited by you as an absolute farce

3 - Enterprise - Extinction - got half interested in the Xindi Plot and then they come up with this pointless detour, with **** all of a story-line, and a resolution that baffles me

2 - Enterprise - North Star - they follow one of the High Points of Enterprises third season (Twilight) with yet another space western fart

1 - Enterprise A night in Sickbay - Literal dog ****

There are others i could mention, but the 'so bad its good/funny' rule kicks in - Up the long Ladder, for example - makes me laugh every time - Spocks brain, - and the children shall lead - all hilariously bad! But the 'Hilarious' segment promotes them above the dregs category - IMHO

I expect this musical episode may end up being fondly regarded by some, and laughed at by those who dont like it - and yea, when i wasnt cringing, or covering my ears - i was laughing so!

breezy1985

The finale of Picard season 2 with the assualt of chateau Picard by Seal Team Borg would be in my top 10. Actually my top 10 would be all 21st century episodes Picard s2 and the finale of Picard s3.

There might be some ENT and Disco episodes that are worse but I would need to rewatch to even remember individual episodes and not a hope I'm doing that.

liamtech

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120942314#Comment_120942314

to be honest most of season 3+4 of discovery was also atrocious and not enjoyable in the slightest - i never even thought of it because i honestly barely consider discovery to be Trek -

I have more regard for Picard than most - although i admit to it being at least a mitigated disappointment

CastorTroy

I don't remember Fair Haven and now ye make me want to watch out of morbid curiosity. Is it really bad or is it just seen as bad by ones here due to the setting and accents? Like do non Irish have the same opinion?

Edit: Ok, so google tells me it's not just Irish opinion

CastorTroy

They did an alternate Klingon take where they did opera

https://tvline.com/interviews/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-musical-deleted-scene-klingon-opera-1235023488/

Though don't know if Klingon opera or Human.

Greyjoy

Hmmm, kind of a mixed bag for me. It's an extreme tonal whiplash to go from war crimes/ptsd last episode to whimsical musical this week. The writers almost got away with it for me but the Klingon "boy band" at the finale pushed it over the line into cringe for me. When they playback the Klingon message I fully expected to hear them singing in opera. It would have still been funny but at least in character. I wasn't a fan of how they portrayed Chapel singing about getting the fellowship. There wasn't any regret in the song about how she treats Spock. It made her look callous and came off as IDGAF.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120942510#Comment_120942510

Perhaps one to be watched in a snarky humour while not fully sober :)

Have a drink whenever a character pops into the pub.

Up the Long Ladder from TNG is another that lays on the Oirishness.

In fairness most of the big 1980s US TV series did an 'Oirish' episode to fill out the 20+ season. Not just a Trek thing.

In DS9 If Wishes Were Horses, Colm Meaney pushed back on the fantasy character being a leprechaun so we got Rumpelstiltskin instead.

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120942618#Comment_120942618

Yeah totally destroyed Chapel this season. Seemed to be desperate to get with Spock, he breaks up with his partner, then she dumps him callously. All to be in Canon, so she can be never mentioned in any books about Spock. What a brain dead storyline.

Kevrano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120942964#Comment_120942964

Remember Boimler let slip that she doesn't have a future with Spock. Maybe she sees the opportunity to move on. Then there is that fact she'll meet her future husband on the project

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120942964#Comment_120942964

In fairness the anomaly made people say things they wouldn't normally say so I'm sure she meant to do things in a much nicer way.

Overall I wish they had just never bothered with the story which just seemed dto be fan service to a small subset of the fandom.

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120943042#Comment_120943042

Yeah I hated that too. It just seemed a handfisted way to tell the audience they would split up. I liked their banter so just annoyed the way they wrote their relationship into the ground.