It took us a while, but Strange New Worlds finally gave us compelling Star Trek last week with its “Orders Of Magnitude” episode.
The premise? James T. Kirk – alleged first officer of the USS Farragut – is back on the Enterprise for reasons and suddenly finds himself as temporary first officer to a badmiral who assumes command on a mission to wipe out a planet while Captain Pike and a handful of crew are on a planet responding to a distress call. Kirk, however, thinks that this mission is not on the up and up because Badmiral is badmouthing his dad for reasons that go unspoiled here and he ends up teaming with brother Sam to find out the truth while also preventing the Enterprise from doing something incredibly bad.
It’s a bit of a cliche plot within classic Star Trek, but fuck that. This episode’s big swing is that it’s going to be an episode of Star Trek. Something that has been severely and painfully lacking this season with maybe one or two exceptions at most, Orders Of Magnitude felt like vintage Trek fare with a new coat of paint. Now did we need this to be another Jim Kirk story when Sam Kirk was right there? No, not when Sam was and still is severely underutilized if we’re being honest – it seems like as soon as we had Jim Kirk cast, we didn’t need Sam anymore and that’s a shame because he’s the more interesting Kirk on this show.
I’ve long since given up on any pretense that this is anything but a TOS origin story… which is partly a lie because I’m thinking this whole exercise is an attempt to sell people on that Year One concept that the showrunners of this thing really, really, REALLY want to make… but I’m not sure who would want that, especially if the numbers for THIS show are fairly weak to the point where they’re not even getting a “full” final season. The really sad thing is that when these writers aren’t playing with themselves coming up with inane concepts such as puppet shows, musical episodes, or soap opera themed shows, they can pull off some decent – not great, but decent – Star Trek storytelling. I go back and watch some of the earlier episodes… mostly the first season and there was some potential there that this could have been a great show. This was a favorite of mine, early on… but of course, we gotta have BIG SWINGS.
Well, look what happened there, right?
I should be a bit more positive on this post because it’s a good Star Trek show on a series that desperately needed more Star Trek in it, but good Star Trek wasn’t a once in a lifetime moment; it was a regular thing during a season for twenty-plus weeks. Now we’re lucky if we get one of those every two years… eh.
And for the record, no, I still have not watched Academy. Teen drama is not something I’m willing to put up with for the sake of “some” good Star Trek. This franchise has been around for sixty years. I’m not lowering standards of what makes for good, compelling television just because everyone else has.
Only two more episodes of this show before we can all it a season. I’m pretty sure there will be thoughts at the end of it all and then I can cancel my P+ sub. For the best, I suppose.
