Focusing on two timelines, Tomorrows Enterprise leads with Uhura of the present linked to her future as the two work together, manipulating the timeline to their advantage to solve the mystery of an undecipherable alien message, and a certain Scottish engineer who seems to have vanished from the timeline in the future…
Writers: Henry Alonso Myers & Robbie Thompson.
Director: Chris Fisher.
In the present, there’s some weirdness for Pike’s Enterprise as they investigate a White Hole thats giving off some weird signals and an energy pulse that causes a temporal shift that directly effects Uhura after she hears strange sounds over comms. As she begins to hear things, such as Scotty screaming for help, her future self is going through some oddities of her own.
A year in the future, the Enterprise is on the other side of the anomaly, investigating the connecting black hole. Expert flight trainer Captain Ortegas returns to the Enterprise to fly Uhura and Scotty towards the black hole, but Scotty gets hurt and doesn’t return. The timeline changed. Uhura’s told Scotty died a year prior, during the white hole event and knowing they were on a mission together, answers the call of her old self.
Working together and using the separation in timeline to their advantage, the Uhura’s run experiments and investigations letting them play around with the narrative as present Uhura can start, and future Uhura can finish. With Spock in the middle being more deadpan than normal through the escalating weirdness.
Whats really fun about the episode is how different the two era’s are and how it hints at the next chapter of Star Trek, which is really it’s first chapter. Future Uhura is a more refined officer, with more experience under her belt and an undeniable confidence that present Uhura has only just started to shape. Celia Rose Gooding channels more of Nichelle Nichols style and delivery – as well as her hairstyle! – which gives some variety to playing the same part twice. Plus we see some (mildly canon pushing) teases towards the random romance of Scotty and Uhura in their twilight years with the missing engineer being a core plot point.
In the present, there’s some weirdness for Pike’s Enterprise as they investigate a White Hole thats giving off some weird signals and an energy pulse that causes a temporal shift that directly effects Uhura after she hears strange sounds over comms. As she begins to hear things, such as Scotty screaming for help, her future self is going through some oddities of her own.
A year in the future, the Enterprise is on the other side of the anomaly, investigating the connecting black hole. Expert flight trainer Captain Ortegas returns to the Enterprise to fly Uhura and Scotty towards the black hole, but Scotty gets hurt and doesn’t return. The timeline changed. Uhura’s told Scotty died a year prior, during the white hole event and knowing they were on a mission together, answers the call of her old self.
Working together and using the separation in timeline to their advantage, the Uhura’s run experiments and investigations letting them play around with the narrative as present Uhura can start, and future Uhura can finish. With Spock in the middle being more deadpan than normal through the escalating weirdness.
Whats really fun about the episode is how different the two era’s are and how it hints at the next chapter of Star Trek, which is really it’s first chapter. Future Uhura is a more refined officer, with more experience under her belt and an undeniable confidence that present Uhura has only just started to shape. Celia Rose Gooding channels more of Nichelle Nichols style and delivery – as well as her hairstyle! – which gives some variety to playing the same part twice. Plus we see some (mildly canon pushing) teases towards the random romance of Scotty and Uhura in their twilight years with the missing engineer being a core plot point.
And of course, the space baby. Which is a fairly large part of the story considering the space between the white and black hole was host to the birth of a new alien and all the communication were the space midwives telling Enterprise – both of them! – to step back and not get in the way. Which, of course, the did. Twice. Which is a fairly big plot point, but not one dwelled on outwith Uhura’s own story which was the right call narratively. Especially as we’ve had ‘space babies’ before as recently as Picard.
Overall it was a strong episode acting as a logical close for the season. There were some things that didn’t sit quite right. Particularly all the evolution and change on the Enterprise being only a year away when it felt like a much larger gap in how different the two era’s were. Also how dense must one be to not realise the Uhura’s had swapped?! But one of the things Strange New Worlds does well is give a depth to iconic, yet still underdeveloped legacy characters. And with Celia Rose Gooding they’ve struck gold.
Fast paced, exciting, a bit mad with the science and still with all the hallmarks of a character driven Star Trek story… it was an excellent way to close the season.
EPISODE DISCUSSION & SPOILERS
Highlights
- Jenna Mitchell has always been seen as a stand in for Gary Mitchell., This episode links the two.
- Doctor McCoy gets hism first shout out as an unseen part of the crew.
- If the aliens in the shuttlebay seem oddly familiar, they're from the 1970s animated series.
All Connected...
Chapel mentions dating a girl from temporal investigations. Deep Space Nines 30th anniversary tribute to the franchise was narrated by Ben Sisko to agents of the organisation who grilled him on his accidental encounter with the USS Enterprise in the 23rd century where Sisko would save Captain Kirk from an exploding tribble.
About the author
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