WHY WE LIKE IT: Uhura's first mission!
WHY WE DON'T: This is where the hair gel starts to get out of control.
REVIEW: Like the previous episode (and as if inspired by the show's name), the episode starts with a glimpse at a strange new world, one our heroes will never even step onto, though they will have an important impact on its survival. And the opening log is from Cadet Uhura, whose story this is. (Does everyone get a turn? It was Una, last time.) The exciting thing about young Uhura being in this series is that though this character is an icon, her past is largely a blank slate. (We could say the same of Sulu, who I wouldn't mind seeing on SNW eventually, as a young astrophysicist.) This episode does a lot to right that wrong, showing her as a linguistics genius (she should start reading Klingon now, if I go by her performance in ST VI) who already knows 37 languages (though most are Kenyan dialects) and throws a bit of Andorian around just to show off. A genius who had other options, and fell back on Starfleet after her family's death in a shuttle accident, at which point she couldn't bear going to the university where her parents taught anymore. So she's not just it's for her, and while "Soft Touch" Pike is kind to her about this, a harsher Spock reminds her that she's taking up a spot that could be filled by someone who actually wants to be there. One of the arcs this season is seeing how Uhura commits to Starfleet, and it starts here.
She did warn Ortegas that she was known to break conversational boundaries and might say the wrong thing after being invited to the Captain's dinner. There's a bit of hazing going on - Ortegas tells her to wear her dress uniform and Spock and Hemmer act like she disrespected the only technically blind engineer, but they're trolling her. Introduction of "Enterprise Bingo", more on which later, but more importantly of Hemmer himself (played by Bruce Horak). An albino Aenar, member of an Andorian sub-race who can "see" through telepathy (as seen in Star Trek: Enterprise), Hemmer only gets a couple of short introductory scenes, but is already a lot of fun. He's irascible, but expresses it with snarky humor. We reach, as they say. On another show, this dinner might just be a character moment before the main action and have little to do with it. In this case, once the plot starts, we're always returning to it, and not just as background for Uhura's insecurities during her first away mission.
That mission? A comet is going to crash into planet Persephone III, extinguishing its technologically undeveloped culture. Further mystery: When shot with torpedoes, it projects a force field. And so Uhura's chance has come. She, Spock, La'an and Lt. Kirk are sent over to investigate, and end up trapped inside when Kirk touches a big egg thingie, gets zapped, and leaves Uhura as the only expert in any kind of linguistics to figure out the comet's scientific puzzle. There are almost too many ticking clocks - the comet will hit the planet, the team's anti-radiation drugs will fail, Kirk will die without treatment - but in any case, the code will be cracked thanks to Uhura's musical ability, as introduced, yes exactly, in that dinner scene. Or way back in TOS Season 1, if you prefer, but it provides us with her and Spock's first duet. He should stick to the harp, mind, but it does the trick and unlocks the comet so they can be transported back. We also get a bit of teasing about Chapel flirting with Spock, which is fun coming from Uhura, in a meta-textual way.
However, the situation has progressed (or devolved) during their escapade. Aliens called the Shepherds show up with a massive ship to protect the comet, which they call M'hanit. They cannot let Enterprise interfere with what has been pre-ordained, whether M'hanit acts as a bringer of life or of death. They're pretty unreasonable, so Pike and crew have to be extra devious if they want to save the planet. Ortegas pulls some fancy flying, getting the ship ahead of the comet and in a position where the Shepherds can't fire on them for fear of hitting the comet. They play dead, ask for help lest they collide with M'hanit, buying Spock enough time to board a shuttle and use heat emitters to melt some of the comet's surface without ever touching it (technicality!), thereby changing its trajectory just enough that not only doesn't it strike the planet, but it "brings life" to it in the form of humidity. I do feel that after making a big deal of M'hanit communicating through harmonics, nothing of that sort was brought to the final solution. It doesn't quite connect. Instead, the musical message explains the comet's path and that it would lose exactly that mass to seed Persephone III, leading the crew to wonder just how it knew the future. The Shepherds leave as friends, admonishing the Starfleet atheists about their lack of faith, and apparently completely snowed by the clever ploy. Or not, since it was all part of M'hanit's grand design.
Now back to the dinner: When Pike asks Uhura the classic boss-to-employee question of where she sees herself in ten years, he chokes on the question because his OWN end has been foretold and it happens in about that time. Like I said before, I don't much like this subplot, but here it is. He really HAS seen himself in ten years. In his conversations with Una, she puts the thought in his head that the future might not be set and that the vision could have been a warning so he could find a better path - to save the five kids (who he has looked up) AND himself. This may turn out to be a dangerous thought. The incident with the comet does illuminate how prophecy works, however, and Pike takes solace from two things. 1) That even trying to prevent an event is part of the event, so he need not second guess himself. And 2) that from our vantage point, a vision of the future can be misinterpreted. Not that this lays the question to rest YET. A lighter Pike is a better Pike, in my opinion, and even with existential angst, what we have here is a captain who invites lowly crew people to his cabin and cooks for them - I just love this personal, egalitarian style of leadership.
Not knowing where else to put this, I'll say it now: I have some misgivings about Ethan Peck's performance as Spock. No, not performance, rather DELIVERY. He tends to run words over, muddling the dialog. I don't find it particularly clear AS television dialog, but it's worse because he's Spock, and I would think Spock would be very precise in his speech. The example I always give people is from later episodes where he pronounces "colony" as "colny", but you'll find a dozen other examples (or xamples) in this very episode (or epsode). There's also the matter of his hard "th" sounds coming out as hard D's. Be warned, once heard, this cannot be unheard.
SECONDARY WATCHING: Nine years later, in For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky, the Enterprise encounters an artificial asteroid, this one with people aboard who have no knowledge of their world's true nature. Spock may be too precise to reference a COMET where this one is an ASTEROID. Many details are different (inhabitant, a fake planet surface on the inner surface, etc.) and Spock's curiosity is equal to the events, no more. We never find out what Uhura thinks of this though she is on the bridge when Yonada is encountered.
LESSON: Sometimes, things go so badly, even a Vulcan laughs.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium-High: This is a "standard" SNW episode, which is to say it's quite good, but if it lacks a little in the story department, its character moments are strong enough to get it the better score.
Comments