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New Gorn Theory:

Since we learned the Gorn stranded with Ortegas is a woman, I now propose that the only Gorn we've seen in SNW are women. The men, of course, look like this:

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Erica Ortegas: *sees a gorn communications array*

Erica Ortegas: "That's a Gorn communications array! I need it to communicate. With my ship. Not the Gorns! Haha, we have fun here. Anyway. *looks at camera* Now, if I could only walk past this big scary Gorn here. I don't like Gorn. See, my distaste for them began when

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Y'all... when Kirk finds out challenging the Gorn to a game of chess was an option all along he's going to be SO pissed

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Section 12, huh?

this was going to be a bullet in my initial thoughts post for SNW s3e9 "Terrarium," but i think it deserves a separate post.

i don't think this counts as spoilers so no read more

in the very beginning of the ep, Ortegas is giving her personal log. she says,

"Enterprise is investigating a peculiar area of uncharted space. Like stories told by old Earth sailors, this region is legendary for its tales of strange phenomena. Ghost stories at sea."

except...that's not what she says. i sourced this dialogue from this website's transcript of the episode, but that is not fully accurate. in the version of the episode i saw, this line of dialogue includes a reference to a "Section 12" that, i assume, investigates "ghost stories." i've never heard of this, so i guess it's a new thing.

i suspect that the reference to Section 12 was added late in production, because the subtitles also did not include this line. is Big Mountain testing the waters for a Section 12 show a la Torchwood or The X-Files? probably.

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thoughts on SNW s3e9 "Terrarium"

one of the strongest episodes of this season. my feelings on it can be summarized as: the first draft of a REALLY good episode.

i say first draft because all the plot points are there, but written in a kinda clumsy manner. someone said that season 3 was affected by the writer's strike, and this episode makes a lot of sense with that reading. the dialogue needed a few rounds of editing to sound a bit tighter and more natural. but the bones of the episode are great!

Ms. Cellanea's bullet point miscellanea:

the aspect ratio. in the beginning of the episode i was confused. i was like "is it just me or are these shots really...wide..?" until i realized that the aspect ratio was ultrawide (2.35:1 to be exact, according to imdb). i think its cool that, with the technological advances of streaming compared to traditional television, individual episodes can have unique ratios like that. it definitely makes SNW seem like an anthology show (it isn't because it has the same cast of characters but you know what i mean)

that being said, i don't actually like this aspect ratio. personally i think this episode would be better fitted to a narrow aspect ratio. the wide shots made the Enterprise's already huge rooms look even bigger. and Archimedes, Ortegas' shuttle, looked cavernous! i think the episode would be more tense if the shots were more narrow and claustrophobic.

loved the practical effects!

this episode reminded me of multiple things. "Arena" from TOS, obviously. also The Martian by Andy Weir. also the excellent movie Enemy Mine.

with all the Arena references, i'm surprised i didn't see the vasquez rocks anywhere. (they were probably there, but i didn't notice)

interesting thing about this line that Ortegas says: "What I'd give for a phaser." we instantly clocked that line as a reference to Arena. it's one of those lines that gets quoted all the time. for example my dad says it a lot. but i like to point out that the actual line Kirk says is "But I'd trade it all for a hand phaser." very much a beam-me-up-scotty kind of thing. i just found it interesting that this episode does a similar thing

ortegas and uhura friendship :D

spock's role in this episode. i'm curious to see what others have to say about it. i think it was perfect. that's my spock! that is exactly the kind of role that spock should play in an episode like this. i also think it works well continuity-wise, which is a rare compliment.

we were joking that it would be funny if kirk was somehow on this moon. ortegas stumbles across him. "Woah Erica, funny seeing you here!"

when ortegas asked if the gorn was female and she responded in the affirmative, she was probably thinking "yes! got it the second try." i am grateful that the script wasnt all binary about that scene

wish we got the gorn's name tho :(

like halfway through the episode i was thinking "man can ortegas set a fire? that seems kinda important." which led me to say "It's a shame she doesn't have a phaser, or she could have heated up a rock* then my dad replied, "But then they couldn't have the 'What I'd give for a phaser' reference." lol i imagine the writers were thinking really hard. arena reference, or phasering the rock reference? a difficult choice

*i hate to explain the joke, but for non-TOS girlies, it was a common thing in "survival"-y episodes for someone to phaser a rock to heat it up. (for example, the naked time) we like to joke about it

the metron appeared with such slayage. so funny i love that costuming choice. hmmmmm fine. i suppose i'll assume a human form for communicative purposes. (chooses to tear it up on the runway)

on the one hand its like okay another tie in to TOS? but i think it works fine in this episode. since the metrons have this "let's do this and see what happens" approach, i could definitely see something like this happening more than once.

so one of the ways that this episode builds tension is the deadline. the enterprise is due to rendezvous with the constellation to deliver vaccines. i don't bring this up to complain; i just found it really funny. because setups like that are SO COMMON in TOS fanfiction. it just made me chuckle

pike has a line near the end of the episode: "Blurring the rules... that is new for you, but... it's not bad for the right reasons." i feel like there's something worth saying about this line but i haven't figured it out yet, so i'm putting it here for my future reference

so.....that exchange with spock at the beginning of the episode...is he concerned about his weight? was it a fat joke? it looks like erica didn't mean it as one, but spock kinda seemed like he was taking it that way? hmm.

one more line to read way too much into: "The probability of failure is greater than the possibility of success." said by Spock. i'm a linguistics nerd so this line stood out to me. i'm fascinated by the word choice here. using both probability and possibility. it differs from the way i personally use those words, so at some point i want to look into that. in my nonexistent free time (sigh)

i'm sure we all knew that this gorn wasn't going to survive the episode. i expected that she would heroically sacrifice herself to save ortegas, much as bytha did in "Shuttle to Kenfori". (i would have been dissatisfied with the writing choice had it happened.) but the way she died? that was great television.

la'an. i love you but girl. please tell everyone on your ship to keep their phasers on stun. stun! stun is an option! i'm not even just talking about this episode. i'm also thinking about "Through the Lens of Time" and how the dilemma presented was shoot him! versus don't shoot him! but guys. stun was still an option. we never discounted "stun" as an option against this guy.

when ortegas said that it's hard to reconcile that the gorn and la'an were both trying to protect her? good line.

i guess i should talk about the gorn. much has been said about how the gorn have been treated by this show so far. i can see two possible views of this episode.

This episode is backpedaling.

The Gorn so far have been portrayed as 100% evil. SNW has received much backlash for this choice. Many Trekkies have pointed out that the point of the episode Arena (when the Gorn was introduced) was that they are not 100% evil. So in season 3, the writers (or the powers that be) said: you want Arena? here, have Arena!

2. This episode is not backpedaling.

The Gorn so far have been portrayed as 100% evil. However, this does not discount the possibility of an unreliable narrator. At the end of this episode, the Metrons call both humans and Gorn barbaric. This episode admits that the humans have been barbaric towards the Gorn the whole time. This admission retroactively changes the context of the show's previous statements about the Gorn. Now, the statements are a manifestation of human barbarism. SNW is not backpedaling: it is revealing its true message that it was working towards all along.

Which view is true? i dunno. as in most things, it's probably neither. or both.

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bugs is…. shrimp????

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Pigeon 3D model, personal project

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I think in the same way there's a 90/10 rule with horror and comedy (horror works best when it's 90% horror and 10% comedy and vice versa) there's a 90/10 rule for some relationships in fiction that's like. Wholesome and fucked up. A good friendship is at its most compelling when it's also 10% a bit fucked up. Fucked up relationship is at its most compelling when there's at least 10% of something actually sweet and substantive within. Do you get me

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“For every Julian Bashir that can be created, there's an AUGMENTED CRAZY GORN waiting in the wings.” -Rear Admiral Bennett

Sorry this page is absolutely flooring me rn

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I’ve been debating whether or not to throw my hat into the Four and A Half Vulcans commentary pot. I even started writing a post about how the serum couldn’t have been derived from Spock’s experiences because if the Kerkhovians had had access to his memories, they never would have made him fully human in the first place. About how even if it were, the episode does nothing to dispel Spock’s belief that Vulcans are jerks as Doug is an outlier. About how the idea that behavior is coded into DNA is problematic to put it mildly.

I would have talked about how half of the “Vulcan” crew learned nothing from their experiences, and about how the other half learned lessons that either came too late or weren’t necessary from a narrative perspective. I would have discussed character arcs or lack there of, and how this episode told us a lot but showed us very little.

I would have discussed what I believe the writers were trying to tell me in this episode and described how they ultimately fell short. I would have dived deep into the moral implications that were presented but never explored in an attempt to show what this episode could have been if the writers weren’t so focused on trying to be funny. And ultimately I would have concluded that this episode tried to do too much and as a result did absolutely nothing at all.

But I’ve decided that I’m not going to. I’m keeping my hat firmly on my head because I have neither the time nor the energy to write that thesis. Everyone’s mind is already made up about this episode, one way or the other, so really, what would be the point?

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“This is your 35th attempt to elicit an emotional response from me.”

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The Character pipeline

There was another comic like this that i was desperately looking for, but I couldn't find it. so i made my own

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I’m gonna be honest it could be any of these at any time.

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"I would never-"

You would if you were tired enough. You would if you were hungry enough. You would if your mind and body had been worn down enough, through pain or disease or toil or violent struggle. You might if you were put on the wrong medicine, or you got the wrong kind of head injury, or you were forced to choose between someone else and yourself. You might if your livelihood was staked on it, or all your hopes and dreams. You might if you didn't know what else to do, if it's what you were taught or if nobody taught you anything else.

I have not been worn down in most of these ways. I have lived a remarkably privileged life. But I have been worn down in some ways. And they were enough to teach me that in the wrong circumstances, any of us can become someone we don't want to be. It's worth keeping that in mind.

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"it's inscrutable" maybe to you it is. I scrute it all the time

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the way i understand the difference between blorbo and The Character is that blorbo activities are 1. fun and 2. voluntary. when youre rotating blorbo in your mind you’re playing with your tuoys. but when The Character has got ahold of you then you are a tortured artist being plagued by visions