Hey, look at the time! It’s time for more of Lauren’s unsolicited thoughts & feelings!
I’m actually only two episodes into SNW S2 so far, but I did feel compelled to get a few things out of my system. The first two episodes are almost mirror images of each other, they could be from different shows entirely. In the first we have a bombastic, high-stakes risky adventure that throws regulation to the wind, and in the second we have a courtroom episode that spends its entire time exploring the ramifications of an infraction from years ago in one character’s past. The dichotomy struck me, to say the least.
Comparing the two, the season opener feels rushed, silly, and at the risk of sounding even more pretentious than normal I might venture immature. It may have benefited by being a two-parter, so that it would have more time to address its many moving pieces- but really I think it just needed to be toned down a little bit. Is M’Benga’s green superjuice something we knew about before? How about his strikingly loose interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath? In episode 2, part of Neera’s argument is that Starfleet breaks its own rules when it suits them to do so. I found it a little funny that no mention was given to the recent hijacking of the Enterprise by its acting captain.
All, however, is more or less forgiven. Ad Astra Per Aspera is the strongest courtroom episode I can remember watching. Here we have some writers daring to break new ground by poking at old, accepted canon, but doing so in a very familiar format- by putting a favourite crewmember on trial due to a complication of their identity. Like with Data before her, I was totally captured by Una’s struggle to gain freedom from the very organization she hoped would accept her. Unlike the previous episode I’m very happy with this one as a standalone, as extending it to a two-parter would have surely involved more of the conspiracy angle from the prosecution, which would only suit to water down the real meat of the story (Pike is a tall glass of water- which is to say, he waters down everything you put him in). As it is, they addressed yet skirted neatly around this obstacle with poise.
I’m still going to temper my glowing review with my main criticism of this episode, which was that in the end the writers chickened out. The state of the laws that Una became entangled with is unchanged, and I don’t expect we’ll see this string tugged on any more for a while to come (am I wrong, later-episode watchers?! I guess I’ll find out). That’s a shame, because I would have loved an episode almost exactly like this about the Prime Directive, where the Federation is called to question that law’s real validity. I was on the edge of my seat while Neera was skirting around doing just that, but I suppose it’s fair that she had other things in mind.
If these first episodes are any indication, the rest of the season will be a rollercoaster for me. But I’m looking forward to finding the other high points.
