Matt and Sean talk about how Strange New Worlds keeps borrowing other genres in Star Trek SNW Season 4, Episode 4, "A Case of Chiaroscuro." A musical, a horror hour, and now film noir shot in black and white. Matt calls it Andor filtered through Doctor Who, and he means that as a compliment and a complaint at once. Sean argues the story earns the style, from Una's con at the end to La'an's quiet unraveling in sickbay. Pike also climbs the captain rankings along the way. So is genre play the smartest tool this show has? Or is the peanut butter getting into the chocolate?
Order Sean’s next book, “In the Fields We Thirst” here: https://undecided.link/in-the-fields-we-thirst
Chapters
- 00:00: Intro
- 02:32: Today’s Episode & Mailbag
- 08:27: Episode Description
- 08:55: This Time in History
- 11:37: Episode Discussion
Transcript
Sean Ferrell: In today's episode of Trek in Time, we're talking about how to pronounce the word chiaroscuro. That's right, I said it properly. Welcome everybody to Trek in Time. This is the podcast that takes a look at all of Star Trek in chronological. Just patted myself in the back for saying chiaroscuro properly and then I couldn't get the word chronologically out. So it's been a long week, it's been a long month. It's been a long 2026. Let's just turn the corner. I propose this. We just. It's 2020. Happy New Year, everybody. Here we are, brand new Year. We turned the corner. Here's looking at you. So anyway, this is the podcast that takes a look at all of Star Trek in chronological stardate order. And we also take a look at the world at the time of original broadcast. I'm Sean Ferrell. I'm a writer. I write some sci fi, I write some horror. As a matter of fact, I have a book coming out. I was going to say next year, but we just made it 2027. So it's this year, everybody. In April of 2027, I will have a new book coming out. It's a horror novel entitled In the Fields We Thirst. I hope you'll be interested in checking it out. It's available for pre order now, so go to your favorite bookstore online or off and ask for it by name. With me, as always, is my brother Matt. He has that map behind Undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives. Today we're going to be talking about a Case of Chiaroscuro, the newest episode of Strange New Worlds. Normally we are hip deep in older episodes. We are almost done with our original series rewatch. We've already waded through. I mean, how many is it now, Matt? We went through Enterprise, a good portion of Discovery, all the previous seasons of Strange New Worlds, Starfleet Academy was in there and we're almost done with the original series episodes and then we're going to jump into the movies.
So looking forward to that and hope everybody will be interested in joining us for that. But first, Matt, I've just talked for quite a while and I've said chiaroscuro more in this recording than I have in the past, I'd say 54 years of my life. How are you?
Matt Ferrell: I'm doing, I'm doing great. Once again, second episode in a row with the intro. That's been a wild ride.
Sean Ferrell: Buckle up everybody. We're in weird days. We're in weird days. Matt and I are holding on. We're holding onto each other. We're getting through stuff. We're doing okay. But give me an open mic and this is what you're going to get. Anyway, today we're going to be talking about a case of chiaroscuro. This is an episode that dropped on August 13, 2026, directed by Meera Menon, written by Skylar Ojeda and Dana Horgan. And we're going to be talking about that in a bit. But first, as always, we like to jump into the mailbag, see what you've said about previous episodes, just in case people are curious. Our regular viewers, our regular listeners. We have been caught in a pattern lately where occasionally there are mailbag comments and occasionally there are not. It does not mean that we didn't find anything of interest. It's just that our recording schedule has gotten a little. Somehow we get into these little loops where we're ahead of your viewership, so we don't actually have any new comments to visit. That's why you see these blanks. We cherish your comments and love reading them and sharing them and. And discussing them afterward. So please keep those comments going. Anyway, that was just a note to say, please don't interpret our silence as our not being interested. So take it away. Matt, what have you found for the mailbag this week?
Matt Ferrell: Well, from our last episode, the. The Griffin incident, we had some feedback that came in. You and I both really liked this episode, like, a lot, a lot. And this. There was a bunch of feedback. And there was a. There's three comments that were all of a theme, which were. It was pretty good. And I'm kind of summarizing here, but they all, in different ways, said it felt like it went on a little too long in the first third and then came to an abrupt end at the end. And it felt very jarring. And thinking about it, I totally get where they're coming from, because when I was watching it, I had that feeling when it wrapped up that I thought, wow, this wrapped up really fast. Like, they really wrapped it up fast. But what's funny to me is my reaction to that was, ah, feels like next generation. And I can't wait till we get to the next generation, because they do this over and over and over.
Sean Ferrell: It's very much in the DNA.
Matt Ferrell: So many episodes.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: Yes. Where it's just like they come to this conclusion that takes like three minutes. They spend like 40 minutes just building up, and then just three minutes of like, it's done. Okay. We're moving on. So for me it was, it was jarring in a kind of like, I don't know, nostalgic way, I guess. Because I want Next Generation.
Sean Ferrell: I can see that too. That's an interesting element of Next Gen. I think all the shows of that era of Trek, they like, Voyager did it. I know Deep Space Nine did it. It's an interesting element to keep an eye on from the perspective of. Is that an example of Trek being more interested in the debate around certain topics as opposed to landing on a conclusion for those topics? I don't know that that necessarily applies to the Griffin incident, which is such a horror issue that, you know, for me, I don't know that they've, you know, it's a demonstration of philosophy. Philosophy. Not landing on a decision. But it'll be interesting moving forward because some of the best episodes of Next Gen that revolve around a debate do have that. Well, we've said everything we have to say goodbye, everybody. And then they walk out the door before you realize like, wait a minute, the credits. How did that happen? Yeah, exactly.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah. We also had a comment from Paleghost69 from 19 minutes into the episode when we were talking wrote on Spock and La'an's relationship into Spock's character change in the original series. You mean you guys haven't been picking up on the telegraph that La'an is going to die? Paleghost, no, I haven't been picking up on that. I have been picking up on something really bad is going to happen. But I'm not taking that as she's going to die. Cause the showrunners of this show don't feel like they're that ballsy they would kill off a well loved character like that. It feels like they will put her through the ringer, but she'll get a little something at the end that kind of like wraps it up in a nice way. That's my take. That's probably why I haven't been feeling like, oh, they're gonna kill her off. But it does feel like something really bad is about to happen. What do you think, Sean?
Sean Ferrell: Yeah, I agree. There's a. There's definitely a fuse burning in the background. And there are from a writerly perspective. I think that there are a number of ways that it could play out. All of which could have the deep impact that you're talking about and could play a big role in saying, how are we jumping towards Spock becoming the Spock we know from the original Series death or not, I agree with you. Something. Something is ticking.
Matt Ferrell: And then we had a couple of wrong answers only and I couldn't make up in my mind which ones. I'm going to read them both. One from AJ Chan about human best friend. Parentheses clip show. Several crew members are flying a shuttle transporting a key diplomatic figure, the dog of the Federation President, when they encounter a storm and do an emergency landing on an asteroid. They pass the time by telling stories about dogs. Spock recalls the story about his pet Sekhet dying when he was a kid. La'an declines to tell the story, but the audience sees a flashback about her childhood dog running into the woods when the Gorn attacked her colony. Palia recalls being a guest on the NX01 when Porthos peed on the sacred tree and had to spend the night in Sickbay. The Enterprise finds them and the President's dog pees on Pike's leg. The end.
Sean Ferrell: I actually really like that.
Matt Ferrell: Me too. That's why I had to read it, because I was like, I kind of like this.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: The other one was Mark Loveless, and he's on a theme here from last time. Okay, plot of human best friend in part two of Stewie's Time Machine episode, the Griffin family dog Brian ends up on the Enterprise bonding over alcohol. Brian and Scotty end up becoming besties and even handled an Enterprise crisis together, solving it and preventing the ship from exploding. 3 out of 5 stars. And somewhat related to this, Paleghost69 left a comment saying about the episode the Griffin Incident. I enjoyed this, but I would have enjoyed Mark Lovelace's Famous Guy crossover even more, which I thought was just love it.
Sean Ferrell: That's a great response.
Matt Ferrell: Thank you, guys.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah, thank you guys.
Matt Ferrell: That's terrific.
Sean Ferrell: So now, that noise you hear and those lights you see flashing, that's not a Family Guy crossover starting. It's the read alert. It's time for Matt to tackle the, let's call it the Memory Base Alpha description. Take it away, Matt.
Matt Ferrell: Una is mistaken for a resistance leader and drawn into his struggle against Klingon occupation.
Sean Ferrell: That pretty much says it all, don't you think? Although it does leave one element of this episode curiously missing. And we'll talk about that, I'm sure, quite a bit when we get into the discussion. So what was the world like at the time of original broadcast? As I mentioned before, this one dropped on August 13, 2026. And what were we listening to? Well, Matt on Spotify, I think, you know, that you were listening to Drop Dead by Olivia Rodrigo. And you've been rehearsing. Take it away, Matt. Good. Thanks for that. And at the box office, our regular viewers and listeners will know that there's a certain point in our rewatches of older programs where I get a little punchy about the fact that it's, it's always the same movie because we used to have an era where a movie would hit number one and they would just stay there for weeks after weeks after weeks. We no longer live in that era because movie going is not viewed in the same way that it used to be. Well, buckle up, because I think we're going to be seeing this one for a while. That's right. The number one film remained Brand New Day, which originally released on July 31. But at this point in the month of August, it held onto the top spot. And spoiler alert, it will continue to do so and on television. Among the new programs that are getting top critical response, this one stood out to me. Yes, it's another superhero from another comic book, but from a competing studio, this is Lanterns, which is based on the DC characters of Green Lantern. This is an American superhero television series created by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelot and Tom King. It's on HBO and it's based on the Green Lantern characters Hal Jordan and Jon Stewart. I really liked the fact that when they, they cast, first of all, Kyle Chandler, everybody loves Kyle Chandler. He is a good selection for Hal Jordan.
Aaron Pierre is in there as Jon Stewart and then Kelly McDonald is in there as well. The thing about this show that I find very compelling, and I say this as somebody who has not yet watched it, it's effectively True Detective through the lens of Green Lantern. I find that really compelling. It was a really smart choice. I really like what they got going on. So check that out.
Matt Ferrell: I've been watching it.
Sean Ferrell: It's really good. I am not surprised. I, I mean, when you look at Rotten Tomatoes, when I opened up Rotten Tomatoes and saw that the tomometer was at 92%, I'm like, oh, boy, the critics really lined up in support of that one. So. And in the news on this day in the middle of August, Homeland Security intensifies pursuit of non citizens on voter rolls. Immigrants who said they inadvertently registered to vote while obtaining or renewing driver's licenses are increasingly facing deportation under the Trump administration. On now to our discussion of this episode. Kind of a timely thing with that headline being about looking for people who don't belong. And then here comes an episode filmed in black and white. With a. Let's talk about the black and white nature of this one in just a moment. Matt, I'd like to get your thoughts on that right out of the gate. Heavy metaphors around Nazism, World War II, direct homages to Casablanca, the idea of film noir being played with in the filming of a black and white episode. And we've talked in the past couple of weeks about, well, if you have episodes that revolve around a certain gimmick, taking something off of the straightforward sci fi path of Star Trek, the straight and narrow episodes, and you do the gimmick episodes, but you only have 10 episodes in your season, every single one of those is 10% of your season leaning into a gimmick. We find ourselves now in another one where, yes, there's a very obvious gimmick. We loved the horror story episode and now we go into one that's an homage to film noir and it's filmed in black and white. This time around, when it comes to the gimmick, as opposed to the musical episode where there wasn't an in episode reason why they were all singing, or in the horror episode, there is an in episode explanation of why the horror experiences are taking place.
This one revolves around a very small little reference of it's because of the red band spectrum light emitted by the star nearby.
So everything is effectively just desaturated, color wise. Is that how it would work? Is that what the world would look like if you had that type of star nearby? It doesn't really matter. Hard sci fi people are going to look at that and probably say, oh, there's all sorts of reasons why that's baloney for me. I quickly fell into a place where the point of this is to tell a story in a certain way. They wanted to tell a story with a certain style and they wanted to underscore. They have a line right at the end of the episode. Not everything is so black and white. You know, they're. They're going for kind of a tongue in cheek response to their own episode in the episode to say we wanted to tell a story this way about this kind of thing. And I found myself by the end of the episode having come fully past the Am I distracted by the gimmick? Does the gimmick undermine the episode? Because those were questions that were running through my head at the beginning. I find myself thinking like, is this working as a storytelling device? Is this working for me as an audience member? Am I enjoying this? And by the end of the episode, I find myself largely Having pulled into the episode enough that I was no longer thinking in terms of, am I enjoying this? Is this a device that's working? That to me, told me that it did work. And I found myself thinking, interesting that that was the device they landed on to tell the story that they wanted to tell. And I found it to be right in the parlance of this podcast. This episode, for me, while being a. Let's throw back to the 1940s. Let's throw back to a black and white storytelling. Let's pay homage to old movies. This felt incredibly contemporary to me, very of the now, very of the political moment that we find ourselves in. And I found it working in that vein.
I found it working aesthetically as a thing that was pleasing to look at, because I thought the black and white filming, the cinematography of the episode, and I'd like you to talk about that as well, I thought it was so lovely to look at. They knew what they were like. You can tell when they shoot a scene with this kind of black and white expectation. You don't put the lights where you would put the lights otherwise. You don't put kliegs on people in certain ways to make sure the shadows are hitting the face the way you want them to. I found it lovely to look at. I found it compelling in its point, and I found it moving in its purpose. So it ended up being. This felt very Trek to me and right up to the final shot where it resaturates, but not into color, but into sepia. So it ends up being. Yes, the world is more sophisticated, but there's still layers between them and us as far as what the final moment looks like. So this is me kind of like opening the discussion about the episode with a. I really liked this in a very different way from the ones I've liked previous to this. Like the horror episode, which I thought stood out as like, this is one of the. This is one of the best tracks I've ever seen. I wouldn't put this one that high, but I do put it up there. As for metaphors to talk about what is the nature of evil and what is the nature of identity and how if we are not to be defined on what we are born as, but to be identified as what we do, this episode stands up and is better than the original series efforts at the Nazi episode. Like, this one gets it in a really interesting way for me at least. So what did.
Did you have similar questions in mind as you started the episode? Were you going through a similar internal debate at the beginning, did you find yourself falling into the storytelling and losing the debate, or did you find yourself just completely on the outside looking in for most of it?
Matt Ferrell: I'll answer that through the eyes of my wife. Sit down to start watching this episode. And the thumbnail comes up, black and white image of Una, the thumbnail. And her first words that she uttered was, oh, no, I don't know if I want to watch this. If it's like some kind of weird time travel. They're back in 1940s Germany. And I was like, oh, God. But I had an open mind. I don't mind those kind of episodes. I was totally fine to go into this, started watching it, and when they said, oh, we're going into a area with this infrared light and it's a black and white, first voice in my head was stupid. Just in the back of my mind, just, like, dumb. I was like, why would you go to this length to try to explain why you just wanted to make a film noir episode? You just wanted to make a film noir episode. Okay, that's fine. Come up with a stupid, sciencey reason for why everything's black and white. Fine. Okay, first five minutes, I completely forgot I was watching a black and white TV show. I just was like, oh, okay. This is well told. It's well rendered. It's interesting how things are going out. I got a little more distracted by the fact that she just happened to look like the resistance leader. It's like, come on, come on. The people that know her, know her and grew up with her and lived with her. It's like, wouldn't know that this alien that just wandered in just happens to look like her. It's like, come on. That, to me, was a bigger issue than the black and white explanation by a huge margin. But even then, I got pulled into the episode because it was an interesting exploration around fascism and what it, you know, personality and what do you stand for, all those kind of things that they were exploring. I thought we were doing really well. I got pulled into the episode. The Doctor's story was great.
Like, all of the stuff they were kind of fleshing out in the entire story, I thought was really well done. And by the end of the episode, like I said, black and white issue was not an issue for me. And then when they faded back into that sepia tone color at the end, I was like, oh, that's the only reason they did this. They just wanted to have an artsy, fartsy film noir episode where they could use the color to accentuate the point that they were trying to drive home. And for me, that didn't bother me, but I felt like that's kind of a hacky way to do it. It's so on the nose. Watch a show like Andor that deals with many of the same issues and a fascist state and all of this kind of similar themes. They just told a compelling story that by the end you're just like gutted by that show. This was kind of like taking Andor and making a Doctor who version of it, if that makes sense. It's just like a. The more light hearted way that these showrunners handle Star Trek is a very.
Sean Ferrell: They.
Matt Ferrell: I don't know. Every episode seems to be a. You can go back through the previous seasons too. Episodes tend to evoke. They wanted to make a episode around this style of movie or that style of show or this musical or like they're. They're having fun with genres and telling stories in different genres. And that's very Doctor who-y to me. Because Doctor who, he is kind of cartoonish and over the top and bombastic. And that seems to be why these two showrunners seem to love each other.
Sean Ferrell: Like.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, because they seem to be cut from the same cloth. They've kind of Doctor who ified Star Trek just a little bit. And I don't mind that because I love Doctor who, but I feel like, you know, like the. You got peanut butter in my chocolate. You got chocolate in my peanut butter. It's like, I think you're getting a little too much peanut butter on the chocolate here, folks. You might want to take some of that off. But that being said, if I was just talking about this episode only, I enjoyed it. It was not episode one for me at all. It was not the levels of episode two, which is the freakish horror storytelling that they did in there.
Sean Ferrell: That was so good.
Matt Ferrell: I thought this was like a good, solid Trek episode. It dealt with Trekkie topics, It dealt with Trekkie ethics and morality. It dealt with thorny issue. It didn't have a clear cut answer to some of it. It still remained in that shades of gray at the end, which is the going back to a sepia tone color. It's like there were aspects of this I thought they handled pretty well. I was just kind of disappointed by. I don't know. This is gonna sound like a real derogatory thing, like a grad school film project. You know what I mean?
Sean Ferrell: Like, there's like a. Yeah, it's like a. It felt a little. A little precious.
Matt Ferrell: Yes, that's a good word. It's very precious. Yes.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah, it's like.
Matt Ferrell: But I liked it.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. I understand that approach. I mean, as you're describing all of your responses to it, I think that that is going to be a big part of my response to most of the next generations. We're stuck in the holodeck and we don't know how to get out. Episodes where the point of those is often very compelling and you have those moments of true. Like, I like some of those episodes I enjoy. Especially when you get to Barclay. This is the second episode of this podcast in a row where we've invoked his name. It's going to be fun to get to his episodes. When you get to the questions around, what is the point of this episode? And the point is to be able to have a bigger discussion, and this episode does that. So I think it falls into that same territory, and it kind of feels a little bit like I liked this one, I think, clearly more than you did. But I completely understand where you're coming from. So let's. Let's pull back from the overall tone of it, and you've already touched on a couple of the elements in the A storyline. I very quickly was just like, I know why they're doing this. I'm going to forgive them for saying, holy cow, do you look like an exact duplicate of this woman who just died?
Matt Ferrell: Yeah.
Sean Ferrell: You can't have this episode be what it is without that happening. So, okay, even her Klingon boss and her best friend, resistance leader, both of them are just like, you're my friend, you're my underling. And like, okay, fine, you want to be able to have these moments.
Matt Ferrell: But here's. Here's what bothered me about that, though, Sean, is they could have very easily taken a different. They could have had their cake and eat it, too. Here. They could have had. The Klingon doesn't really recognize her because the Klingons not paying close attention to that kind of stuff.
Sean Ferrell: Maybe all humans look alike, but the friend.
Matt Ferrell: The friend behind the bar should have been immediately like, who are you? You like, you look frighteningly like my friend, but you are not her. Who are you? And then leaning into the, well, we should let you pretend to continue being her because you still might be able to help us. So he could have leaned into it, and if they had done that, it would have diffused a lot of my issue with the. She just happens to look not just a little like her, but she's so much like her that nobody understands that that's not her.
Sean Ferrell: It's like, right.
Matt Ferrell: So unbelievable. They could have just very easily addressed that.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah. But I think that one of the things that works for the a plot that is really compelling. You have three big issues on the table all at once because you have three different characters who are responding to the exact same moment in very different ways. And I found myself thinking, wow, they really managed to kind of sandwich in a lot of stuff in one plot line. And each one got enough attention. Each one felt like it was properly framed and dealt with in interesting ways, led to interesting conclusions, had to do with character and plot. But none of it overwhelmed and none of it felt like it was given short shrift. You have Una Chin Riley with the. I know what it's like to have to pretend to be something you're not. And there, you know, there comes in a very contemporary through line of people who have to pretend to be normal in our current environment because outing yourself or being outed will be a legitimate threat to your safety. So that is handled, I thought, with a very interesting. And it drives the plot heavily in this episode. It's an interesting issue to deal with. The Doctor revealing that story that he tells. The backstory of, yeah, there were these loyalists outside the hospital who were keeping the patients from getting treated. And when I was done, none of the loyalists were alive. And it's this like, who is this doctor? Moment of like the lengths that he goes or something. Yeah, he's like James Bond and he. The lengths he goes to to make sure that Uhura is going to be safe. The tutelage he gives her about. Here's how you mask everything you're feeling. You have to make sure that you give yourself enough handholds so that you can safely navigate this cliff. And it's this fascinating, like, pick the name of a family member or something that is genuinely true so that you don't have that moment of, I forgot what name I came up with.
Telling her at the bar, order a drink, don't look. You've got to act like all of this is beneath you and you don't care. Like guiding her through this PTS inducing moment and doing it all with this kind of. I've done this so many times. And her response being, who are you? Like, how do. Like, how many different things have you done? And he's just like, eh, don't worry about it. That I thought was definitely handled wonderfully done. And then Uhura's storyline is compelling because here she is in an environment where there was no anticipation she was going to go into a situation where she might potentially be tortured in an environment where she would be interrogated. The way she goes through all of that, the way she tries to handle and take in what the doctors advised her to do. I thought it was deftly written that she lies about what she sees in the image, so that when she leans into her half truths and it reads as true, it confuses them as interrogators. She manages to deftly weave her way through all that in a way that I was just like, that's really great. This woman who is inclined to say, language is how I see the world. I know 31 words for bad, and this is worse than all of them. Like that idea. And then in this moment, she's able to parse the questions in a way, like, I see a tree. So that. That's a lie. Where are you from? A small village. True. And it's just, like, nicely handled. I was like, you go here. Or that's. That's terrific. The sandwiching of those. Any one of those could have been a through line for a plot where that would be the only one you talk about. And yet here they have these three characters bouncing off of each other in these ways that I found worked really well and gave each of them enough attention to feel like each one was satisfied. And that's, I think, part of what makes the energy of the episode keep lifting you back up.
You get maybe distracted by, like, okay, some of the stuff, like, she looks just like her. Okay. But then what they're doing with the conversations brings me back in again.
Matt Ferrell: These are characters you care about, and they're in situations that you're worried about them. And it's fun to see how they're evolving from these situations. Like the holy. Her thing. I just adored her plot. Her little plot line of what she went through and how she got through it. And the Doctor helping her, I thought was so perfect. The thing that kept me engaged and really like the episode at the end of it, even though I have these downsides to it, was what they're doing. The main ethical dilemma, which is because all of this comes back to, here are Starfleet officers all willing to break the rules. They're all breaking the rules. La’an on the ship is breaking rules on the ground. Una is breaking rules. And the Doctor's like, you do realize what you're doing right now? And he's completely okay to go along with her to break the rules, but he's just reminding her, you make sure you know what you're doing, because what you're doing gonna break the rules. My favorite Picard episodes are this. Them grappling with whether to break the, you know, the Prime Directive or to help the species at the. For sake of this other one. It's like those. Those moral dilemmas that Starfleet puts itself into because of its rules are what makes Star Trek so fun. And this one does that. So it allowed me to kind of forgive the. Oh, she looks just like the person. So stupid. I completely forgot about that and just wrote it off because I was in the moment of, oh, this is an interesting little morality play that they're kind of building out right here about what to do and how to handle it and the clever ways that Una ends up handling. The end sequence of just the way she tricks the guy and frames him as the bad guy so that they can all go scot free out the door. And I was like, you go Una. Like, that's a very close. I didn't see that coming at all. So it caught me by surprise.
So it's. Those elements of the storytelling were so strong that it made me forgive all the weak spots.
Sean Ferrell: I really liked the turn at the end there with Una as well. And it was one of those things where as soon as I realized what was happening, I was like, I should have seen it coming. But it's a sign of good writing. It's a sign of strong writing when you can use something that is effectively overused. That idea of planting the thing on the person so that the double cross works to your advantage. That's been done a thousand times before. But to get away with it, it's a little bit like you go up to that street magician. You know, it's Three Card Monty. You know that they're gonna do something to hide that queen, but they still get away with it. And you're entertained by that. And I found myself in that moment of just like you, you hid the queen. Good job, you got away with it. To switch to the B plot, La'an is doing her. It's again, still in the Chiaroscuro. So it's black and white. But now that story isn't Casablanca as much as it is a private eye who is beginning to question themselves. And so they've played with this. Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing? Am I in over my head? Is there a problem? I liked the exploration of that with her. I felt like the previous episode they'd given her really short shrift where it was the. She just turns into this tough guy and she goes around and she beats people up and she makes the gang her gang. And like, okay, that was played for almost. It's a comedic element to the episode. And I'm like, they're not giving any really compelling teeth to the questions around, is she changing? And as we mentioned at the beginning, there's a fuse burning here we are seeing something change. I didn't expect the B plot to be the one that would explore her recognition of I don't know what's happening to me. And I thought they handled it really, really nicely, considering it was a B plot.
It was a little bit like, you know, I would have anticipated maybe more something along the lines of, like, Data's day. The episode which starts with Data writing a letter to the doctor who wanted to take him apart. The entire episode is Data is narrating what it's like to be Data. And by the end of it, we're seeing where has he grown, where has he not, and where are the edges of who he is as a thing and a person in the world? And that was the A plot. So here we have this, and it plays with similar terrain of the shifting understanding of herself and what she thinks is going on to the point where she goes to sickbay. I love the scene in sickbay where she reveals, like, I fully believed I had found a conspiracy. She wasn't wrong. So there's this kind of very nice bow, very quickly put into a B plot on something that is gonna have depth. And if they're doing it right, if they're doing it the way you and I think they're doing it, is gonna be extremely compelling and impactful moving forward. So I really thought the B plot was handled well.
How did you feel about what was going on with La’an and this?
Matt Ferrell: I agree with you. The previous episode, it was for laughs. And this episode was more time and depth to ratcheting up the tension around her character. Development of this tension of this ticking clock, I thought was really good of playing with her inability. Just like where she's starting to self doubt and think that she might be hallucinating or becoming overly paranoid. I thought it was a fantastic thing. The scene with Christine where Christine comes clean and is like, I erased it for a friend. And then there's almost a sense of kind of like relief on her for, oh, my God, I wasn't imagining this. But crap, now what do I do?
Sean Ferrell: Her duty is supposed to compel her to report this. Yeah, right.
Matt Ferrell: Which is the whole thing of, like, breaking the rules. Why are you breaking rules? Is there a good reason to break those rules? And here we got Christine breaking a rule. We got La'an breaking rules to protect Christine, you have the captain at the end who is basically saying, like, a wink and a nod to her. I'm here to help you. He's almost saying, I know kind of what happened here. Yeah, Like, I know you're covering something up.
Sean Ferrell: You found something that's gonna be fine.
Matt Ferrell: You can talk to me. So I thought, I thought that was neat to see him the way he did it was very artful the way he handled it. Which, by the way, Pike, he is getting up there in my mind as one of the best captains.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: Like, most underrated captain would be a voyager. And then you've got, for me, Picard's number one. And then I think Cisco is right up there. Sorry, everybody. I think Kirk is not anywhere close to the top for me. But Pike, Pike is getting there mainly. I love how he is so unique in how he handles his team. He is like that family kind of centerpiece. And I love how he goes to the bridge and he'll go, okay, quick ideas. And then he expects his entire team to come in and start barking ideas. And then he picks the one that he thinks it's a good one, where Kirk is the one that's. He knows he's one of the smartest people in the room and he's the one that's playing 5D jest and trying to come out ahead. And Picard is that, you know, buttoned up, you know, by the numbers in command kind of guy. I just love how they're all so distinct from each other. And Pike's character and just the way he comes across, it's just. You love the man, which is making what's going to happen to him so tragic, is that he's this. It's working lovable captain. And it's, it's, it's setting him up for that tragic moment. Even better.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah, it's going to be very compelling if they show us that.
Matt Ferrell: Yes.
Sean Ferrell: If they get to the moment where, like, here it is and they give us all this dramatic moment to build to that as a scene. It's going to be really, really compelling. I also want to say about the La'an storyline, nice little bow for the Scotty and the pilot to be like, they were eating Cuban sandwiches together. And La'an at the end to say, like, when he says, did you discover anything? She's like, did you know that Scotty and the pilot have become friends. Throwing that out there as like, that. I found that out. That's interesting.
Sean Ferrell: As an element of it. And the Vulcan who's in her first year out of the Academy and is serving alongside Uhura, having her come back in a moment like this, even if it's only to serve, like, you need to have a Communications officer on the Bridge, she needs somebody with that expertise to help her with a thing. Even if that's all that that character was there for in this moment. I thought it was a nicely done little nugget of a scene where this Vulcan is just like, you don't need to blow smoke up my butt. I mean, like, okay, if you're not capable. And seeing her kind of like twist a knife in a Vulcan ego, it's one of those things where I hearken back to the episode of Voyager where they give us the flashback of Tuvok when he served under Sulu. And you see the scene when Sulu says, if you're going to serve on my Bridge, you have to have a sense of humor. And don't tell me Vulcans don't have a sense of humor. I know better. It's evocative of that moment for me where it's like, yeah, Vulcans are going to Vulcan, but you can, you know, you can prod them in certain ways and get an emotional response and they're going to pretend it's not emotion, but it is. It's like you can needle them in the right ways to. To get what you need out of them. And I thought that that was a nice. A nice moment showing La'an also having that kind of, I can work with people in ways to get what I need. Because she's sophisticated and. And without putting too fine a point on it, she's kind of conniving. She's kind of manipulative.
Matt Ferrell: Yes.
Sean Ferrell: And who does that sound like? It sounds like Khan. It's just this kind of like, I'm gonna. I can out think you in getting what I need. And she demonstrates that a lot. It's an interesting character that they've crafted with getting there very subtly where I'm watching and I'm just like, oh, yeah, she's not. She's not a nice Starfleet officer. She is. She's got this darker edge to her and it's a little bit like, where is the. Where is the security officer's perspective come from? Sometimes people are good police and security because they think like the bad guy. And she has a certain amount of, if I was trying to get away with this, this is what I would do. And so she's able to find the dark corners because she's like, what I would do would be to do these things, and she finds the bad guys that way. And I really. I really like that. It's an interesting. It's very different from, like, the security officers who stand out in Trek tend to be. You get. You get Warf and you get Tuvok, and the two of them were very different from each other because Warf was. It's. I am military precision personified. And Tuvok, it's the pacifist logic applied to security procedures and protocols. But here comes completely other side of it, which is, oh, yeah, if I was trying to take over the ship, you'd have a hard time stopping me. And it's this.
Matt Ferrell: Which I could do.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah, which I could do. I could take over the ship. So, yeah. So in the end, it sounds very much like I give it a slightly bigger or higher thumbs up than you do, but it sounds like we're both saying, like, this one works on the whole, and we both enjoyed it. So I'm curious, viewers and listeners, where do you land on that scale? Do you agree with me that this one worked in ways that was surprising to you, to a level where the enjoyment was more than just average? Or do you land in Matt's camp where you're like, it was fine because it was fine and it was well told, but at the end, it doesn't rank among the best. Let us know in the comments. Don't forget commenting, liking, subscribing, and sharing with your friends. Those are all very easy ways for you to support the podcast, and we do appreciate all that support. If you'd like to support us more directly, you can go to TrekinTime.Show. Click the join button there. That allows you to throw some coins at our heads. We appreciate the welts. And then we get down to the heavy, heavy business of ranting about the fact that it's still 2026. Thank you so much, everybody, for taking the time to watch or listen, and we'll talk to you next time.
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