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Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x05 "Charades"
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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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I’ve seen a great amount of curmudgeonly criticism of this episode in other places.
Can’t understand it really. There really seems to be a contingent of fans that just don’t want to have fun.
That's exactly what it is. They have an extremely narrow and boring definition of what Star Trek is "supposed" to be, and revolt against anything that steps outside that, be it comedy, action, whatever.
Some of the criticisms fall in another category of beating on SNW’s alleged canon ‘violations’.
These include assertions that Chapel ‘isn’t the same person’ as she doesn’t have the same temperament/personality as in TOS, Uhura not having met or known of T’Pring before Amok Time, etc., Spock would have been ashamed to have eaten animal products (bacon), T’Pring’s ears have the wrong shape
While I can be quite critical of incoherence in plot threads or characters within a single show, especially in a single season (say in Discovery season two or every season of Picard), to me that’s a problem in how a set of writers are telling a specific story.
I’ve come to realize that the fans who just can’t get past continuity changes they can’t resolve immediately across the entire history of the franchise just aren’t going to enjoy SNW as much as I am.
I classify these inflexibilities as:
— not being open to the possibility that the characters may grow and change,
— not being open to the possibility of characters being unreliable narrators or saying things ironically in later shows (e.g., in TOS Uhura might tweak Spock about T’Pring to press him to identify who she is, even if she personally knew exactly who she was),
— refusing to accept that minor changes in timing, visual design, technology and characters are possible due to intertemporal interference as long as the Prime continuity maintains key/essential events.
In the end, hanging out here to have conversations with folks who are a bit more flexible is a better choice for me.
Identifying potentially unreliable narrators is such an underrated strategy! So a character says "The Federation has never encountered this race/phenomenon before." Off to Memory Alpha to state this as fact! But of course, people state beliefs as facts, incorrectly, all the time in real life!
I find the implicit assumption that everything onscreen is ‘fact’ exasperating.
More episodes than not depend on guest or recurring characters providing inaccurate, incomplete or outright deceptive information. In many cases, the plot hangs on whether the hero crew can deduce or find more evidence about what’s actually going on.
To assume that everything not directly contradicted in an episode is true is boggling.
I think the problem with that is a TV show has a limited amount of time to set up a problem and then solve it. The truly great writers can get around this by spreading information out over multiple episodes through a season, and it gives them more time to deal with incorrect information, allowing the characters to recognize that some information is actually false and then adjust course. In fact it can make for a great plot twist to build on bad information through a season and then reveal everything we've been told is in fact wrong!
However when your plot is limited to a single hour, you simply don't have the time to find out something is wrong, the characters just have to charge forward with what they know, assume everything is factual, and execute a plan to fix the problem. And in many episodes the build-up barely leaves any time for getting things resolved.
It would be nice to see more huge multi-episode plot arcs though. I've seen it happen in some seasons of Doctor Who and it's just incredible when they pull it off smoothly because you get little hints along the way about something but no real context about what it means until it all gets put together at the end of the season. Would love to see more of that in Star Trek. I think Discovery used that in the first couple seasons but then lost it, and nothing else really stands out for me in previous shows.
We do have even so numerous examples of self-serving perspectives and irreconcilable reports across the episodic shows.
Take Lwaxana Troi’s belief that Picard is attracted to her, which Picard denies vehemently. Lwaxana is a formidable telepath. We are given to believe that her perception is some kind of middle age woman’s foible, and Picard is to be believed because he’s the hero. Do we ever see the factual truth confirmed? No.
So, I am more than willing to let main characters be wrong in their recollections or perceptions even if it’s not absolutely confirmed in the shows.
I am not sure I agree with your series Vs episodic approach truly great writers can tell a story in a an hour or a short story. I mean House MD became formulaic but it's first few series the fotmula of two misses and hit (you could check the angle of the minute hand to see where you were) did work and made highly popular single hour whodunnit.
I guess I just feel like there's something to be said when you have what seems to be a minor side story taking place through multiple episodes, where you get a little info here and there that doesn't seem to be related, but then it all gets pulled together. And sure, there are some fantastic stories that take place in a single episode. Still one of my favorite episodes is ST:TNG "Cause and Effect", and I remember being so pissed at the TV station at the time for totally screwing up the airing of the new show until I figured out what was going on.
I just feel like ST in general adheres too much to the doctrine each episode being completely self-contained. Sure there are some broad-stroke changes that occur, but there's also an awful lot where you can watch episodes in any random order and not miss a thing. Or maybe I've just missed a lot over all these years and simply not realized it.
ENT actually did this, which is odd to think how pioneering that series was at the time.
But there were several plot lines that built up over the series and some which didn't even have pay off until the last season just before the series was canned.
It's been a long time since I watched that series, it wouldn't surprise me if I've forgotten a lot.
There's also another side to it which is that there's a very big difference in what TOS fans and TNG era fans would consider proper Star Trek.
I've always held the belief that SNW is very much a spiritual successor or prequel to TOS, and while TNG was a sequel in some ways to TOS it was a very different tone and style and it's some what jarring for people who never really got into TOS to accept as Star Trek.
People think that witty banter and quips were something new to SNW but TOS was full of them the entire relationship of the Trio was built on them, or the goofy scenes where someone would do something silly like Scotty getting drunk with comedic music etc.
This combined with as you mentioned above some slight alterations to canon drives people up the wall and it's just silly. Enjoy the show for what it is or just don't watch it.
I feel like I've heard more people complaining about people complaining about this episode than I actually heard complaining about this episode. Feels sort of preemptive.
You’re fortunate to have missed the complaints elsewhere then. It really seems to be an episode that has very strong reactions, but isn’t outright controversial.
The reaction here seems overwhelmingly positive. Even the fans on old Trek BBS is mostly giving the episode high marks.
But the review by Trek tie-in author Keith Di Candido at Tor is quite critical, and that group of commentators seem largely to have followed.
The old sub has more than the usual quotient of nitpicks, but also enthusiasts.
Trek Movie is one of the few that takes the middle ground saying the episode ‘misses its mark’.
I laughed my ass off, and it was still Star Trek to the core. What's not to like? They are killing it this season.