Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 3x09 "Terrarium"

⁨35⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨ValueSubtracted@startrek.website⁩ to ⁨startrek@startrek.website⁩

Written by: Alan B. McElroy

Directed by: Andrew Coutts

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Stormygeddon@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Finally an Ortegas episode that isn’t a simple “I fly the ship.”

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- ValueSubtracted@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Sometimes, she crashes the ship!
  
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  - alx@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    "I fry the ship"
    
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veeesix@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I was legitimately upset the moment I saw La’An beam down because this was only gonna go one way.

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dethstrobe@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
A Darmok and Arena episode is not what I was expacting but I was pleasantly surprised.

I don’t mind retreading old stories, after all recycling plots is a Star Trek tradition.

I’d have been happier without the reveal of the Metrons. I get it, as a callout/foreshadowing of Arena, but I kind of feel that is took away from the emotional beat of the Gorn being killed by the security team. Then to also have it handwaved away with a memory wipe, so that it is only meant for us, the viewers. I don’t know man… I kind of like the deepcut, but it’s also distracting.

I guess it was also a bit necessary for us to understand the Gorn a bit more to have the all seeing eye narrate to us that the Gorn pilot was lonely and is the reason Ortega was spared.

Anyway, I loved this episode. We got a whole episode for Ortega. Addressed her PTSD that had been sitting in the backseat for this entire season. And I love these kind of survival episodes. Like I really enjoyed ENT’s Shuttlepod One for the same reason. Just seeing characters fighting for their lives and also accepting their death in a cold and uncaring Universe. It’s good completing Star Trek.

The only thing I wish is that SNW’s best episodes didn’t feel like the best of TOS.

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- themoken@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I agree the Metron connection didn’t need to be made so explicit. Would’ve been better if it was if-you-know-you-know about the lights, but I guess that would be unsatisfying to anyone unlikely to wiki things after the fact.
  
  Anyway, also agree this was a great episode regardless. Couldn’t help tear up when the Gorn died, which is not where I expected to be today.
  
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hallettj@leminal.space ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Ortegas and the gorn playing board games was adorable!

I liked this episode! There are some things that seem impossible, like the moon’s orbit and atmosphere - but that can be explained away by the Metrons. The vaccine thing, although on brand for Star Trek, I thought was silly and unnecessary. There are plenty of other sources of tension available.

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MalikMuaddibSoong@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I finally got a chance to watch it and I thought it was great.

An overdue homage to both Enemy Mine and The Arena, feels like they really cooked with this one 🔥

I love the ending with Ortegas’ epiphany that her new reality is that one of her friends killed one of her other friends.

Other than that bizarre found-footage episode, this entire season has been fire. Somehow they’ve managed to give us more of the crew in 3 seasons than disco ever did, and I’m loving it.

I have such high hopes for the new academy show after what I’ve seen in S3, bring on the next trek golden age!

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SpaceScotsman@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I really enjoyed this one.

We finally get some real movement on the Ortegas trauma that was set up earlier in the season and the solution, forced exposure therapy, is pretty wild. Ortegas managed to overcome it fairly well, which does back up the “she passed her psych eval” stated in an earlier episode. Not only does she overcome a personal problem, but she actually manages some form of diplomacy across multiple alien species. Way to go.

My biggrumble with this episode is the ending. I saw it coming a mile away, there’s no practical way to end it other than finding some excuse to write out the good!gorn. I think the episode did not even need the aliens running things behind the scenes, it would have been perfectly fine to just have the spatial anomaly and a crash landing as the setup.

I hope that Ortegas remembers that La’an killed the Gorn, that will make for some nice drama later. I also hope that Ortegas remembers enough that she could try to advocate for the Gorn. While this episode wasn’t quite “Darmok”, Ortegas shows a lot of aptitude for cross-species communication, and that needs to be used alongside her piloting.

The Uhura-Pike drama was a bit less enjoyable. At the end of the episode pike basically says he would have stayed anyway, which undermines the whole B-Plot of the episode. If anything it should have been a Pike-Una debate. And with a more pressing need than “These people need a vaccine absolutely right now but also they can wait a couple days if need be”.

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- observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  the episode did not even need the aliens running things behind the scenes, it would have been perfectly fine to just have the spatial anomaly and a crash landing as the setup.
  
  I think having the Metron running things behind the scenes helped a bit. I did a huge eye roll when there just happened to be a recently-occupied tent within walking distance from the crash site on a desolate moon, given the vastness of space this is so ridiculous (not that it stopped Star Trek or other sci-fi before).
  
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- hallettj@leminal.space ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I kinda appreciate how the Metrons orchestrating things can explain details that seem extremely contrived or impossible otherwise:
  
  a human and a gorn being stuck in the same spot in the first place
  
  a traversable wormhole that they didn’t detect, and that is unlike anything on record
  
  a moon with an orbit that passes through a gas giant thermosphere, that somehow hasn’t had its orbit decay long ago, and that somehow retains a breathable atmosphere
  
  Ortegas and the gorn surviving burning the atmosphere - you see a blue glow around them when that happens
  
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ValueSubtracted@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I thought this one was a perfectly enjoyable, even “classic” (whatever that means) episode - something I’d been hoping for in this season that has seemed a little too “gimmicky” at times.

I wasn’t wowed by it, but it was hitting all the right notes.

And then they got to the Metron reveal, and…I just don’t know. It serves little purpose aside from connecting dots of continuity, and I just don’t find that interesting. It’s fine, I guess, but I think the episode would have been better off without it.

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- StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It seems the Metron scene was necessary for the very vocal contingent of fans who have relentlessly expressed their outrage about the Gorn storyline not fitting in their headcanon about Arena.
  
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Kabutor@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Not a big fan of this episode, I feel that you don’t have the time to develop a friendship between two enemy sworn races, you shouldn’t try to do it.

If you are into Metrons and super powerful entities, just go all the way in, and make time go slower, like the Picard-Flute episode, you can’t have two women playing Heroscape and Chess in two days and being friends forever. Too close to Enemy of Mine, a movie I love, and this fell a bit short.

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observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
That was pretty good sci-fi! A solid 7/10.

I loved it that for the first time in SNW the gorn are a bit more than just space orks. Uhura was especially annoying this episode, and got off way too easy with fudging the numbers. Seeing the Metron was fine, I don’t know if most people who watch this watched Arena or are going to, so it gives them a taste. My favourite human-gorn interaction has to be this though: youtu.be/4hnBp7x2QAE?t=10

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lordnikon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Good retelling of enemy mine but the continuity connection was completely unnecessary

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- Kabutor@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Yeah, I was wondering if the gorn was gonna be pregnant, called Zammis, and if Ortegas will have to go to the Gorn home world to recite the Jeriba lineage :P
  
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thejoker954@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Currently watching it. Just had to come here to bitch before I can finish it lol.

I know Star Trek has never really cared about the science behind it all, but come on - the moon that travels through the gas giant’s atmo having any atmosphere nevermind a breathable one is just stupid - just have it not pass through the the gas giant’s atmosphere for christs sake.

Stupid artificial constraints. Come the fuck on - if the vaccines are soo damn important, why wouldn’t you rendezvous first before dicking around. I know it’s happened plenty of times throughout Star Trek, but this one feels particularly egregious to me.
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- observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Yet the floating boulders are so scientifically accurate 😜 (these aren’t other moons, we are told there are 396 moons, to be exact)
  
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  - thejoker954@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I mean I try not to pick everything apart. It’s just some things are so ‘in your face’ to me my brain goes into an error loop.
    
    Especially when you are looking at something thats only purpose is atmosphere vs something that affects the story.
    
    In this case the floating rocks are merely set decoration whereas the orbit through the atmosphere is a pointless artifical timer to add unneeded drama to a situation that already has enough. (And also already has another artifical timer with the vaccine d plot that is only there to make Una the episode’s ‘bad guy’)
    
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- NaibofTabr@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Also, as noted in the episode, we have shuttles… even if it’s slower, you can reduce risk by sending the slower ship with the critical McGuffin toward the rendezvous, and ask the other ship to speed up to compensate. If you’re able to finish the rescue then you can just overtake the shuttle and pick it up on your way to the rendezvous. Either way the critical McGuffin gets delivered. Problem solved.
  
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- dethstrobe@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I think this can easily be handwaved away since the scenario is artificial in the first place.
  
  Odds are it’ll take a few days or possible weeks of travel to rondevu with the Constellation.
  
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  - thejoker954@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    Yeah it could be, but still - it was unneccessary. Just having a close orbit would have given the same amount of extra (unneeded) drama.
    
    That would just make it even worse that they were dicking around instead though?
    
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Schal330@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I enjoyed the episode overall, only gripe was Ortega being able to build anything she needs on the fly out of anything.

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- dethstrobe@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  To be fair, if you look at her quarters, she does tinker with things a lot. So it’s not exactly out of left field that she might have the mechanical knowledge to tinker up some jury rigged devices.
  
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  - fixmycode@feddit.cl ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    they’ve shown her throughout the season rebuilding a motorcycle
    
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- ValueSubtracted@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I thought there was a bit of a missed opportunity to delve into her training and experiences during the Klingon War. They’ve used that as part of her backstory, but have given the meatiest stuff to M’Benga and Chapel.
  
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NaibofTabr@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Questions at the end of the episode:

Are we going to address the moral issue of Ortegas just stealing from the Gorn? No, OK cool.

Why did the shuttle collapse into the ground at that exact moment? or, at all? We saw no other instances of things just falling into the ground on this planetoid.

Are we going to address the moral issue of Uhura putting 400 lives at risk for the sake of her personal feelings? No, OK cool. That little conversation with Pike doesn’t count. The moral at the end of the story is “It’s OK to lie and put everyone at risk to make yourself feel better.”
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- ValueSubtracted@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  There was a little Metron twinkle in the distance right before it happened.
  
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khaosworks@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Annotations for 3x09 up at: startrek.website/post/28553786

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Lemmchen@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I don’t get the general praise of the episode, to me it felt terrible. The whole episode didn’t make any damn sense. It was terribly written from start to finish. Oh yeah sure, of all the thing that could have burned it was the rations. “You are now a whater condener”. Oh, you conveniently still have parts of the heat shield of your ship! No, if course we won’t still die of heat directly under it with holes in it when the fucking atmosphere is on fire. Oh and what are we even going to breathe after said atmosphere has gone poof? Who cares, we all knew lizard lady was going to get kid anyway.

Honestly, if writing on this level is enough to become a Star Trek writer, maybe I should start writing my own stories.

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- 1stTime4MeInMCU@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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Shadow@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
First good episode of the season IMHO.

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hopesdead@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It was pretty obvious from the beginning there would be Metrons.

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ThrowawayInTheYear23@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Could have used either Metron or Baby Q/Trelane testing the crew this entire season to explain away the holodeck going haywire or the 4 1/2 vulcans.

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