#brains liveblogs snw

[fluorescentbrains]

one issue with re-treading tos era trek that is perhaps minor but is very annoying to me personally is you get disconnects like having medical tech that can temporarily alter people at the genetic level to disguise them as aliens, but if you get fried by delta radiation there’s just no treatment that can mitigate any of the effects, and also hospice care is apparently still a horrifying nightmare even in this advanced utopian future. like pike’s prospects should not be this miserable. he should expecting a flying wheelchair at the bare minimum

[lonesomedreamer]

SNW Liveblog: “Ghosts of Ilyria”

In which the dialogue is both the best and worst part of the episode.

Episode 1: “I’m gonna mess with your genome. […] We’ll have to make a few alterations if you want to blend in.”

Episode 3: “…a humanoid species known for modifying their genes… However…genetic modification is forbidden in the Federation.”

MAKE. THAT. MAKE. SENSE. I know what they did in Episode 1 was just temporary, but Chapel’s whole purpose on the ship is genetic research, which she used to alter (temporarily or otherwise) the genetic code of certain crew members??? Do the writers actually read their own scripts?!

An ion storm, you say? Is this going to be a mirror episode? Seems a little early in the show’s run to be pulling that rabbit out of the hat.

“Whatever tweaks your freak, pal.” Thanks, I hate it.

The design of Engineering is a little busy for my taste, and the lighting is still too low for a functional working environment, but it looks pretty cool!

Oh shit, I completely forgot about the Eugenics Wars (which are such a huge piece of Trek lore—that’s my brain after eight days of work in a row, ig)…of COURSE genetic modification is forbidden! Which makes what they did in Episode 1 even more ridiculous!!! I’m sure having La’an discuss this with Number One is meant to be a wink and a nod to the audience, since presumably she’s related to Khan in some way.

Just kidding, they’re just going to openly acknowledge that she’s related to Khan, lol. But in all seriousness: why is she? Why couldn’t La’an just be an OC???

Good Spock dialogue!

He said “records” the way Nimoy would have, and it made me smile.

Uhura, a xenolinguist and polyglot from Kenya, saying “y’all”…hmmm.

“Nonessential personnel.” “Contact tracing.” “Lockdown.” Obviously, this language could apply to any pandemic, but you can just tell that writers were still waist-deep in the experience of covid while they worked on this script.

Spock’s sass! We love to see it.

Okay, it’s pretty badass that Number One can carry a full-grown man (alien or not) over her shoulder.

“How in the exact hell are you carrying him?” a. Christine and I are on the same wavelength, but b. that’s a truly awful line of dialogue.

I’m annoyed by Number One’s convenient backstory, but I guess to be totally fair to these writers, the character effectively has no backstory, so what’s stopping them?

“You know what will happen if that containment field goes down.” Yeah, we’ve seen it happen to Spock, and we’ve cried about it.

Ethan’s delivery could use some work. I’m a mumbler myself, so I do get it, but especially since he’s playing Spock, he really needs to enunciate!

Ah…this show’s fantasy elements in a science fiction package strike again.

I know she wasn’t a major, well-developed character, but I still feel comfortable in saying that “Don’t thank me, I know I’m good at my job” is an egregiously uncharacteristic thing for Christine Chapel to say. Yikes. (Christine IS good at her job, but TOS got that across by showing it—like when she found a creative way to get a crewman to stop refusing food.)

An amazing shot with nods to the mod/retrofuturistic aesthetic of TOS (finally!)...more of this, please.

If they hadn’t invented a medical transporter out of whole cloth, none of this would be a problem.

“No spoilers.” They really had to slip THAT line in there as a capstone to M’Benga’s tragic story about his daughter? Good thing his daughter is super cute. I do wonder about consent here, though: did M’Benga’s partner/his daughter’s mother agree to this arrangement? What about his daughter herself?

Overall, this episode felt more like classic Trek than any of them have so far, right down to Spock being stranded planetside with his captain. While I question some of the writing/plot choices, I have no big complaints EXCEPT FOR the horrible continuity/logic error wrt this episode and the “gene therapy” shown in the pilot. I was even pretty neutral on Pike in this episode. He’s no Jim Kirk, but he was Fine. (But speaking of Kirk, what happened to Sam??? They just forgot he existed and almost died in the previous episode…?) And I like the moral of this episode’s story—I just feel like the way they got there was a little clumsy.

The Good: Several really authentic-sounding Spock moments; Jess Bush is gorgeous; M’Benga’s absolutely adorable daughter; they kept the whistle sound on the Bridge from TOS!

The Bad: Is “gene therapy” okay, or isn’t it?! Consistency, people! Other dialogue choices…were made—some are OOC, some are just cringe, which is par for the course on SNW; La’an conveniently being Khan’s descendant; this show continues to be more fantasy than scifi

I am once again hoping for more S/C in the next episode!

[the-yearning-astronaut]

T- 60 MINUTES UNTIL STRANGE NEW WORLDS PREMIERS!!

Remember, please blacklist #snw spoilers and #spoilers for the most recent episodes. I'll try to remember to tag ALL SNW posts with #spoilers but I can't guarantee it as my brain sucks sometimes.

To filter out any liveblogging posts, I'll be using #Fox watches snw

If you don't want to see any SNW content for the time being, please blacklist #st: snw as that will be on every post, guaranteed.

[fluorescentbrains]

i like that t’pring is her own character in snw, with specific motivations and interests—i just don’t understand what they’re trying to do with her and spock, and how they’re supposed to get from where they are here to where they end up in amok time

[fluorescentbrains]

watching strange new worlds and trying not to judge it entirely by its heterosexual spock shenanigans but god the heterosexual spock shenanigans are so bad

[fluorescentbrains]

“spock has to be fully genetically human for a week” is a great concept in theory but i am really not a fan of the execution for. multiple reasons

[fluorescentbrains]

did spock realize when he joined starfleet that everyone and their mother was going to need him to do mind-melds

[fluorescentbrains]

ok truly which spock/chapel shipper did they hire to write this shit. come on

[fluorescentbrains]

again. rather than trying to make all the shit from the 60s that didn’t age well make sense. they could… idk. run a fresh star trek show with a fresh cast. just a thought

[fluorescentbrains]

I think I can get onboard with this spock and t’pring subplot if they’re going the route of making their relationship blatantly insane and toxic

[fluorescentbrains]

strange new worlds is like the finger curling on the monkey’s paw for me in that it’s got the right vibe for star trek but it’s all been shoehorned into a prequel format so there’s only so much they can develop the characters and lore. like there isn’t a lot of room for things to happen organically. and then when they do put their own spin on stuff it’s like… spock makes out with ladies and the gorn are xenomorphs now. like only the lamest retcons imaginable are allowed. really frustrating

[fluorescentbrains]

i wasn’t that into the musical episode of snw (once again great concept but the execution did not compel me lmao) but keep us connected gives me chills every time i listen to it. what a banger, what a perfect way to honor uhura’s role in the canon

[fluorescentbrains]

one thing snw has been missing for me is the horny factor. and hetero sex scenes between hot looking people isn’t horny. it’s banal. when will captain pike make love to an interstellar gas cloud. una should be having a doomed romance with a tentacle monster. and i know pelia FUCKS they just aren’t telling us about it

[fluorescentbrains]

we all know sarek didn’t go to bat hard enough for his son but honestly amanda should be going mama bear on these mfs… like it’s been so bleak for spock and no one ACTUALLY stands up for him against the fucking racism… if not his mother then who!!!

[fluorescentbrains]

if they’re going to make shows about pre-existing characters i’m actually glad they’re casting people based on like their actual acting skills rather than how closely they match the physical appearance of the original cast

[fluorescentbrains]

best thing ent ever did btw was make the andorian antennae move around via remote control. it was such a compelling touch. they made the make up more complicated on snw but didn’t even use remote controlled antennae