Writers:Dana Horgan & Davy Perez
Director:Marja Vrvilo
There’s something quite nice about the idea of this episode. Strange New Worlds has leaned on retelling the 23rd century era for a lot of it’s main hooks, whether that be revisiting the Gorn, Vulcan romance or going to the length of an alternate history style retelling of Balance of Terror to close the first season. New Life instead relies on Strange New Worlds own mythology and world building, with the season 3 finale being a sequel to an earlier episode and a new baddie who is both strange and new.
How Gamble escaped to a far away planet was also interesting. The idea of ‘laylines’ between worlds you can travel to plays on some already existing Trek logic, like mycelial and transwarp networks. Even seeing Skygowan, a planet following the Vezda in a cult like way with unexplained hovering structures was fairly cool, and showed an advanced technology surrounded by less advanced inhabitants much like the ideas used in Stargate.
But with all the half-baked science and rush from moment to moment, it didn’t quite fee like an episode of Star Trek in any way or lean on the elements that haver made SNW a nice combination of old and new storytelling. Instead it almost felt more like Doctor Who, both in how it leaned into hand waving quick explanations that muddied science and fantasy while running around a lot from bit moment to big moment, racing to the end as fast as it could.
It really made it hard to focus on much of anything. One minute Gamble’s back. Then there’s a mysterious message only M’Benga can understand, and his understanding of that message means he and Gamble can travel back to the prison the rest of the Vezda are in so they can be released. But before that comes to any logical conclusion, there’s Kirk joining in for funsies, the DNA cocktail inside Batel becoming an important factor, then she’s with Pike in the temple in a good versus evil fight that’s not entirely dissimilar to Deep Space Nine’s Rapture.
By the end we know that Gambles evil, because he’s the bad guy taunting people, chewing up the scenery and having his cult stab their eyes out before unleashing demonic aliens into the Galaxy. And he gets to the shrine to unleash those aliens, bu is confronted by Pike and Batel; the latter of which has had her entire DNA rearranged with unusual side effects throughout the season. Batel’s realised that all those side effects have made her the countermeasure for Gamble and only she can stop him. Fair enough, I guess. Massive leap to get there, but sure.
The next step to that does play out with some logic. Gamble needed M’Benga to travel across the laylines to get to the Vezda prison. So we need two to travel, and Batel needs her second to draw the power she needs to defeat Gamble. Her power is generated by taking Pike through an internal journey through their lives together; in his mind, she creates a reality where he survives unscathed from his future incident, they grow old, have children, and die. All that to draw the power of love to overwhelm Gamble’s hate and save the day. And theres the Russell T Davies type of conclusion.
On paper none of it’s a horrific idea. It’s not uncommon for Star Trek to lean into mysticism over hard science. Deep Space Nine balancing that regularly as the biggest, but far from the only, example while The Next Generation brought in the all powerful Q for a lasting legacy. But there are so many ideas crammed into the one episode that we really don’t get any time to digest it, let alone explore it, which really lets everything down. For a show that spent it’s first two seasons focusing on adventure of the week storytelling, this finale showed us that the whole idea – both in Gamble being the thing of evil incarnate, and Batel’s evolution – really needed a proper season arc. Or at the very least a two parter to cram in all the ideas they laid out here.
A lot of it was fine. The ideas were there, but it was too much, too fast and while the cast did brilliantly and we got some great moments for the whole cast, this was an episode with too many ideas and not enough time to really enjoy any of them. Even Gamble, the big bad, just seemed a side piece that was so easily brought down that his end felt underwhelming.
I will say though, the Inner Light inspired like of Batel and Pike – while crammed into an already overstuffed concept – was a nice get out clause for Pike’s fate. We saw Pike accept that his future was bleak in the first season and him wrestling with how that fits into a relationship with Batel in the second. So her gifting him a life he could never have does let us have the happy ending of sorts It also shows a nice twist in that Pike was so concerned with his own fate that he never saw Batel’s coming. Not that anyone could have predicted she’d morph into an uroboros statue…
Season 3 as a whole didn’t quite live up to the expectations laid down to the first two. And that ends with a finale that also felt like it needed more work. Maybe it was the industry strikes, maybe it was just a few ideas too many. But the finale, much like the season, showed all the talent and potential, but needed a lot more focus.
Highlights
- It was a fun moment seeing Chapel realise Spock taught La'an the nerve pinch.
- The scene with Pike and Una quietly drinking said more than any dialogue heavy scene could.
- Korby's off on an adventure. Wonder how that'll pan out....
All Connected...
While the return of Gamble was a nice nod back to SNW’s own original stories, so was Scotty’s dress uniform. In the first season Uhura wears full cadets dress uniform to attend her first dinner at the Captains Table. Mostly because Ortegas told her what a big deal it was only to be the only one dressed up for the casual dinner. Here, Uhura gets to pass down the prank resulting in Scotty coming in in full dress uniform – kilt included of course – to a relaxed gathering.
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