Returning from a conference for future leaders of Starfleet, Spock and La’an (with Kirk hitching a ride) find a long-lost ship adrift. The USS Griffin’s disappearance nine years prior had never been explained, becoming a bit of folklore within the fleet. Stum,bling upon it by chance, the trio board the ship hoping to find an answer to the mystery only to get more than they bargained for…
Writers: Robbie Thompson
Director: Axelle Carolyn
I’ll preface this now by pointing out I love creepy sci fi settings.. The isolation of being trapped on a derelict ship with no escape and no one to call for help has always been something I’ve enjoyed from the obvious Event Horizon, even to old classics like The Thing. So I was excited for this one by the trailer alone and can’t say I was disappointed!
The premise is fairly straight forward. Kirk, La’an and Spock board the Griffin and it’s weird. Everything is left perfectly preserved just how it was nine years ago as if the entire crew just nipped out to the shops but theres no sign of the crew or where they went. Basically the Mary Celeste in space. But as they explore and investigate the Griffin, each of the trio start to experience a slow burning ghost story. As they learn the ships security officer spiralled into paranoia through her personal logs, something preys on their worst fears bringing them into a deeply dark illusion that slowly drives them mad.
Using the same standing sets as the Enterprise, just with good old fashioned green screen displays, the atmosphere of the Griffin is a nice departure form the bright and happy home the Enterprise has been portrayed as. Even in the vast crew quarters and Engineering sets with just three people, everything feels suffocatingly claustrophobic and unlike the previous foray’s into this style of storytelling, everything has a slow and careful build as the tension escalated throughout each of the teams hallucinations.
Spocks hallucinations were the most obvious path, but possibly the most horrific. T’Pring appears to taunt his human side and play with his mind a little before ‘cutting out’ the Vulcan side of him and chopping his ears off. Which is fairly graphic and harsh, especially as Pike joins the fun and dices up his fingers. Meanwhile Kirk is all about family, hearing his son David crying throughout the ship making him think the bay is trapped in a console.
And La’an, well, the tease continues as the ‘spirit’ of the Griffin’s security chief Rose Harper taunts and teases out her biggest fear; becoming the monster that the Noonien-Singh family line is famed for which she fully embraces and doesn’t back down in trying to murder Kirk.
Not shying away from the psychological horror of essentially a ghost manipulating the crew to madness, or even the shock of Spock waking himself up from the hallucination to find out he cut his own ears off, it felt like there was no holding back from how the story was being told. Even if some moments felt a bit obvious, such as Pike and the crew arrived to save them also being an illusion. But it did add to the idea that nothing we see happen can be believed.
Under the darkness of the story, there are some character beats which look to be adding to the season ahead. Mainly Kirk’s feelings about David, and wanting to be a good father which the audience knows doesn’t happen. And more of La’an’s fears that her brief stint as a Vulcan last season has triggered regressive family DNA that brought the likes of Khan to being an evil overlord. IT was also an intriguing choice not to have La’an wake up like the others, or try and fight against her evil intentions with Kirk only surviving her attack thanks to the real Pike’s arrival.
La’an going full on baddie so easily just adds to the weird and unsettling feeling by the end of the episode. Usually in Star Trek, theres an explanation. Whether it’s Barclays Metamorphosis syndrome, or Garak on psychotropic drugs, mystery and horror always have a science or solution. The ghost of Rose Harper, and the psychological impact the ship had on the team had no explanation. Hand-waved away by saying that was another departments job to figure out, which was an odd tease in itself, there’s no explanation offered, no solution given.
We don’t even know if the ‘ghost’ was Rose Harper. Or if she killed the Griffin crew because she went mad, or because they did as nothing can really be trusted within those logs. It gives no resolution, no happy ending, nothing to undo or explain the Griffin. Instead leaving the crew struggling to move on from the traumatic nightmare.
EPISODE DISCUSSION & SPOILERS
Highlights
- Despite being another ship, this is the first time the Engineering set has been used since Season 3 after being swapped out with the physical laboratory set last season.
- The Griffin registry, NCC-1067, is an odd one for a Constitution Class ship. But fitting as the Constitution Class USS Constellation had the hull number of 1071 in the original series.
- La'ans taunt to Kirk about David's fate was a little too on the nose considering David does die just as she predicts in the episode.
All Connected...
While the story plays on James Kirk’s concerns about being an absent father like his own, we also get some insight into Sam Kirk’s family life. Maybe not directly, as Sam is a hallucination, but this is the first time we have a mention of Peter and his struggle to balance work and family compared to his career minded brother. Peter Kirk was first seen in TOS episode Operation Annihilate when parasites had taken over the Denevan colony the Kirk’s lived on. When the Enterprise arrived, James Kirk found his brother Sam had died. Later his wife Aurelan would fall victim to the parasites, leaving Sam as a surviving orphan by the time the aliens were defeated.
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