Star Trek: Strange New Worlds S3-E05 "Through the Lense of Time" ***Spoilers Within***

eadrom

Phew! They can still do it 😄 – proper top-drawer weird alien mystery stuff. Really enjoyed that, and maybe the first episode this season that wasn't predictable and a little re-heated feeling.

That young doctor guy was a bit annoying at first but, eh, not any more I guess. Pretty gruesome, wasn't expecting that. Although from the final shot of the episode, on the sickbay computers, maybe the actor will be back in some form.

Ortegas' brother is a wee cutie pie ☺️. Again that could have been an annoying addition but so far not so much. The playful flirting with Uhura is actually quite endearing, credit to the actors, and thankfully not over used. Sort of interested to see what becomes of this documentary he's working on too.

And overall, just a really interesting story! I was intrigued from start to finish. Well written, well directed, well acted. And a little dangling thread there at the end suggests there might be repercussions yet to come.

I do wish they'd stop with the big "off into infinity" backdrops, as they had in the chamber here. It seems unnecessary, almost lazy, and has that uncanny valley feel. I guess it's better than the traditional Star Trek caves for every mission, but honestly only just.

Best of the season, so far, by a long shot.

liamtech

Yea i enjoyed that. Not a perfect episode by a long shot but interesting, and enjoyable. I was almost hoping it was a two parter, as the end approached. And it lends itself to a sequel episode too

7.5/10, and probably the best episode of the season so far. Its been a slightly weaker season, so heres hoping it comtinues the trend upward

ItHurtsWhenIP

Definitely the best of the season so far and yes, I agree that we will likely see something further coming as a result of whatever is now lurking the transporter buffer.

Anybody else get a Wolf in the Fold feeling from this … the "ancient evil"?

liamtech

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123704159#Comment_123704159

Yes i thought of quite a few Trek examples of ancient evils. Wolf in the fold, for sure.

The PahWraiths? What about 'God' from ST5-The Final Frontier - oh and remember the being from Day of the Dove! Dove is one of my odd favourite episodes. Seemingly in non canon books it is known as (*)

Id say if it is someone we have encountered before, wolf is the top of the suspect list!

AMKC

Ok when this episode started I thought ok this looks like a crap episode then as it went on and thet started talking about Quantum singularity I thought this would be much better an episode based in the 25th century then that thing happened to Gamble ( terrible name for a person by the way) I thought ok now this is getting weird then the boring one dimensional alien got killed and I was like good riddance. He was boring.

Then The episode got a bit better but I still seen a lot of problems in it. For instance the Captain says security to sickbay and it takes on age for them to get there in the meantime the entity in Gamble has gone crazy and knocked out M'benga as well as had a fight with Captain whatever her name is I forget.

Also we never once see the Enterprise attempt in anyway to rescue the away team. In fact I think we barely seen the bridge at all in this episode.

There Was just a lot wrong with it. Also when the entity in Gamble breaks out of the brig why did Red alert all of a sudden go off. He did not set it off did the shield? Just weird. The same in Sickbay. Who set red alert off there?

Honestly how you can think this was a good episode is beyond me. It was terrible. So many mistakes.

I thinks its a 4 out if 10 for me.

Spear

Major hints of Event Horizon in this one I thought. I quite liked the actor who played Gamble, he played well the innocent young officer, and transitioned nicely into creepy and threatening. Credit to the writers for playing the long game in setting him up as a side character for a few episodes, then killing him slowly over the course of one.

They keep the mystery and weirdness going right to the end as well, making it both its own thing, and still playing into the TOS Corby storyline. The Battel plotline felt a bit shoehorned in though.

fritzelly

Yay strange new world episode - had me hooked all through it

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123704159#Comment_123704159

I have to disagree. For me it was the worst episode of the season so far. Episode 1 was the best. Just too many things wrong with this episode.

fritzelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123704702#Comment_123704702

I think you need to buy a new keyboard

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123704860#Comment_123704860

The facility kinda reminded me of Halo but the bad guy was very Event Horizon.

I genuinely didn't see the possession plot come once he got injured. I thought they were gearing up to the worlds first visor. Really didn't think they would kill him too.

Was great to finally see an episode about a World that was New and Strange. No surprise it's the best one so far.

liamtech

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123705624#Comment_123705624

Yea the facility was decent. I got many vibes off it. Like the Engineer Facility from Prometheus maybe -

It was a good episode, obviously some people disagree, but i enjoyed it. It is the first episode of this season that i half rewatched to catch hints and bits that i missed -

Overall this episode, and episode one are the top two, with this one easily taking first place - half way through the season, its a shade weaker overall, but 5 episodes to go. One is probably another comedic ep, but there could be 4 solid episodes on the way, and im hoping for some decent stories!

Tenzor07

Really great episode and great to see Cillian O'Sullivan playing a central role, you can feel the tension between his character and Spock though if the landing party was just Spock, Corby, Chapel and La'aan it could have had more of that tension..

The fight between Nurse Gamble and Capt. Batel was unexpected, Gorn DNA?

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123704643#Comment_123704643

Lots of people online joining the dots to Pah'Wraiths.

The way they looked like fire, entry through the eyes and the word pah is used a few times to describe them. They are called "Vedza" in the Alien language but both the alien and Battell say "Vedza-pah" as well.

Hopefully it's never explained or they are something new. I don't need another Trelane.

flazio

A bit too much of Spock's sordid love life again but other than that not bad.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123706728#Comment_123706728

Its tedious to watch but Spock is absolutely killing it from his point of view.

Part of me thinks all this comes from a throwaway scene where Dax calls Spock hot.

CastorTroy

I thought it was a really good episode.

One thing I have to say, not just about this but other shows/films with similar stories. Why not leave one person outside? Especially when you see dead bodies that have apparently starved. That may give an idea that they got locked in there, so 2 things to do would be to try and prop open the door and keep someone oustide in case the door closes.

Also, being a fan of Scrooged, it's hard to take the Ghost of Christmas Present serious in any way. Not that she's a serious character in this.

Tenzor07

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123706810#Comment_123706810

Indiana Jones didn't leave anyone outside during the Last Crusade :-)

Besides it seemed the door would only open for Nurse Chapel..

eadrom

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123706760#Comment_123706760

he is pretty hot though, 🤷‍♂️ 😅.

Ethan Peck is very good at playing the emotions just under the surface too, like it’s something he needs to remain mindful of in order to keep them under control. Nimoy was great at that too and Peck’s version comes across as appropriately less developed in his younger years. (Although maybe a little too much younger given the timeline, but still).

I do find the love story a bit uninspired though. It’s maybe more of a disservice to Chapel’s character who is more interesting and should have more to do without just being the hot guy’s will-they-won’t-they.

Didn’t annoy me much in this episode though tbh. I appreciated La’an’s “we’re just having fun” take on their thing, hope it stays that way. And Spock’s definitely-not-emotional avoidance mechanisms in the turbolift etc 😄

Hope we’re done with devoting any big amount of time to do it, although I guess we’ll get something to put that Korby fella back where canon dictates. Is that really the actor’s real accent? I know he’s Irish but definitely sounds like he’s been asked to put a bit of ‘Up The Long Ladder’ onto it.

LambshankRedemption

Episode 5 is very much Prometheus inspired. Ancient Aliens, Ancient technology, a hidden secret. Actually a hidden threat.

Does anyone else find Ortega's brother really annoying?

For instance the Captain says security to sickbay and it takes on age for them to get there in the meantime the entity in Gamble has gone crazy and knocked out M'benga as well as had a fight with Captain whatever her name is I forget.

Considering we know they can beam people directly to Sickbay, why dont they just beam the security team to Sickbay. I know they dont have Comm badges, but if you are on duty on the security team you could be required to carry a communicator, which the transporter room can lock onto at any time. It's a no brainer right?

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123707418#Comment_123707418

Someone says that "one goes in and one out" so using the device opens the gate to the evil people which is very Event Horizon and also very Warhammer 40'000.

But the look is so similar to Event Horizon.

LambshankRedemption

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123707487#Comment_123707487

I was also thinking The Abyss for some reason. Maybe the tone more so than the look, but it definitely had Prometheus inspirations too.

Also:

| "We're going to need a bigger away team"

Is straight out of Jaws. Maybe a hint early on that this was going to be a thriller/horror episode?

TheValeyard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123707487#Comment_123707487

Definitely got Event Horizon vibes

But that was a cool episode. Best of the season. New ancient baddies... interesting.

Are they ancient Gorn? Weird how the Gorn inside the Captain immediately went on attack mode.

DoctorEdgeWild

Good episode, SNW still doing the business for me. Having well written, interesting and well acted characters really helps get over any zany nonsense episodes quite quickly.

Episode had plenty of twists and turns to keep us watching, they did a great job of getting it all into one episode. Yes, the Spock romance angle is getting a little tired but the friction with him and Corby is well acted and not too heavily pushed.

Annoying child with holocam is a bit gimmicky for me but they don't go too far.

Nice work with Gamble too, didn't see it coming and it plays out well. Only thing that's slightly disappointing is that M'Benga seems a bit weak in his confrontations with him, which seems to belie the excellent work done in creating the character.

Overall, we're back in business!

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123707418#Comment_123707418

Yes exactly. The security teams should have a communicator at all times and the Transporter room should have beamed them straight in. Also wgen they do fet to Sickbay the Captain is with them and it's only two of them which is not much use. I also think that surely every deck of a starship woukd have a certain amount of security posted to that deck so ecen if the transporters are down it should not take security too long to get to any section of the deck they are on and maybe they could rotate between 3 or 4 Decks every so often so they do not get bored.

Stark

For some reason I had in my head that "site to site transport" was one of those "wonderkid Wesley Crusher" inventions. Or maybe that was just the first time it was explicitly referred to as such.

LambshankRedemption

To reenforce my argument that this looked liked Prometheus I started rewatching Prometheus. I came across this scene:

That sounds very Season2 Spock and TPring pre wedding episode like? Does it not?

Stark

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123712512#Comment_123712512

And the Spock teapot scene looked very much like Dougal Maguire holding the teapot.

LambshankRedemption

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123712702#Comment_123712702

Thats the scene Im talking about.

DoctorEdgeWild

Have to say that I've been enjoying the discussion and opinions here in the Star Trek forum since SNW began. It's a real shame that boards is on the brink of closure, as decent quality chat/discussion isn't really available on the bigger social media platforms.

ItHurtsWhenIP

I re-watched this today, as it was such a good one. (I also re-watched the next, but look there for my thoughts 🤔).

The one thing that jumped out to me is that Ortegas' "issues" seem to have just 💨disappeared after her 2 week suspension. Unless it comes flooding back at the end of the season, I think the writers have missed a major opportunity here, particularly in the development of Ortegas.

DoctorEdgeWild

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123731787#Comment_123731787

Totally agree with you here, SURELY they have something in store for us with Ortegas. I feel like they've developed everyone else so well that they are just holding it back for the moment. The only time the character has really shone is when she is given the chance to rebel against authority with a personal bias and it suddenly gives the character some real depth, but sadly yet to be plunged into.