Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season Finale Struck an Incredible Balance

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a present each in love with, and unable to flee, its place within the Star Trek timeline. From the get-go it’s recognized that inherently—as a collection following the captain of the Enterprise we all know goes to get replaced by the captain of the Enterprise—Strange New Worlds would as a lot about future as it’s legacy. But its debut season’s finale masterfully balanced these two threads collectively to create one thing magical.

“A Quality of Mercy” is arguably the episode of Strange New Worlds that’s each probably the most fannish of all—which is saying one thing, given how a lot of this debut season has owed to the previous of the unique Trek already—within the sheer layers of connections and references occurring, but additionally the episode of the collection that’s most not like its typical episodic format. Centepurple round a lingering plotline that has sat on the fringes of the present since its premiere episode—the concept Captain Pike continues to be struggling to simply accept his information of the destiny laid out for him in Discovery’s second season, a destiny we all know metatextually that he’ll inevitably have to simply accept regardless—the episode can also be one which proves that Strange New Worlds is definite of its personal confidence in its relationship with the previous of Star Trek itself.

Because not solely is that this episode about lastly coping with, seemingly for good, the entire Pike-future-knowledge, it places Strange New Worlds toe-to-toe with arguably the best episode of Star Trek of all time: “Balance of Terror.”

Few hours of tv in Star Trek’s whole historical past come near “Balance.” It is the gold commonplace to measure every little thing the authentic collection might do, and its successors after the very fact, towards. A good, thrilling starship recreation of cat and mouse, the specter of explosive struggle between the Federation and a long-simmering, forever-unseen enemy, “Balance” isn’t only a pitch-excellent introduction for one among Trek’s most fascinating species within the Romulans however an unbelievable piece of character work for Captain Kirk. It goes to nice depths to show his abilities and capacities as a captain past merely the act of battle along with his Romulan foil. For Strange New Worlds to even take into account making an attempt its personal model is a daring transfer, even for a present that has proved time and time once more already that it’s extraordinarily able to riffing effectively sufficient over story codecs and plots traditional Star Trek has visited earlier than. And so, it decides there’s maybe just one method to even come near doing its personal “Balance of Terror”: taking Captain Pike’s time-traveled destiny and utilizing it to do its personal literal, alternate timeline model of Star Trek’s best hour.

After heading to the Neutral Zone (the world of house between the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire negotiated a century prior as a conflict-free floor between the 2 factions) to convey provides to Starfleet outposts there, an opportunity encounter with the son of one of many outpost commanders—who Pike realizes will someday be a cadet who perishes within the accident that leaves him critically wounded, the captain decides to do the heroic factor and try to warn the boy to keep away from both enlisting in Starfleet or avoiding that coaching cruise altogether. Pike does so out of the Aristocracy in fact—to not probably change his personal destiny, one which he has by and huge already accepted for himself, however to avoid wasting the dwell of an harmless baby. Before he can accomplish that nevertheless, he’s visited by a model of himself we all know can’t exist: clad within the officer’s uniform of The Wrath of Khan, a Pike from a world the place our personal goes via with this radical act of defying destiny. Future-Pike is there with a message from the Klingon monks of Boreth, and one among their almighty Time Crystals, to supply Present-Pike with a glimpse of what’s going to be, ought to he comply with via—plunging us seven years into the long run, previous Pike’s seemingly sure destiny, and straight into the story of what would’ve been Star Trek’s “Balance of Terror.”

From right here, “A Quality of Mercy” is firing on all cylinders. Its reverence for “Balance of Terror” is obvious viaout, from its homages and direct lifts of the orginal episode’s tight, shadowed cinematography to its understanding of what made that episode work half a century in the past within the first place, that is the primary actual time that Strange New Worlds, for all its homages, has straight transposed itself onto a previous episode of Star Trek, and it’s dealt with extremely. But there’s a stress there past the metatext of straight tackling an iconic piece of Star Trek layered in as effectively, as Pike finds himself on this model of the long run the place nothing’s fairly proper to him: La’an and Number One are gone, the Spock we meet is extra just like the strictly logical self of traditional Trek. Uhura sits in her seat assured because the Enterprise’s comms officer, not fairly the still-unsure girl we left in final week’s episode. It’s even within the little issues that have modified: no Sulu and Chekov on the conn in fact, however nonetheless Ortegas and Mitchell, their seats swapped in a means that’s simply completely different sufficient to perturb us and Pike alike. We know “Balance of Terror” by coronary heart, however in throwing in all these little components, and taking part in with our familiarity that’s grown with Strange New Worlds’ variations of those characters over the season, there’s a definite sense of unease to the proceedings to throw us as off-balance as Pike himself is.

All this implausible sufficient, but it surely’s stage setting for the true thematic coronary heart of “A Quality of Mercy” because it begins to ship its easy “what if?” query—what if we had a model of “Balance” the place our hero is Christopher Pike, and never Jim Kirk? What ought to be a fannish Captain vs. Captain debate turns into a massively vital piece of character work for our hero, however to even do this within the first place… effectively, you want a Jim Kirk, don’t you?

After receiving phrase {that a} fellow Federation vessel is headed to the Neutral Zone to assist the Enterprise take care of the reported assaults from a thriller cloaked Romulan Warbird that kick off “Balance of Terror” Christopher Pike and we alike are shocked to be confronted with the long run: Paul Wesley’s Captain James Tiberius Kirk, main the USS Farragut on this sideways story, and coming to us somewhat sooner than his beforehand introduced season two debut. Wesley’s Kirk is Jim via and thru, sufficient of an homage to Shatner’s iconic efficiency with out being imitative, however alike in what matter’s most—that is the risk-taker, the gung-ho charming chief we knew from Star Trek, simply not the place we all know he’s meant to be. He is, as his brother Sam explains to Pike, an excellent captain, however form of somewhat little bit of a jerk, the brilliant younger factor assured sufficient himself to additionally know that he’s by no means one to imagine in these notorious no-win eventualities.

As “A Quality of Mercy” winds its means via the trail of “Balance of Terror”—though a path askew with Pike on the helm of it, quite than Kirk—it places putting these two iconic males collectively into a spot of parallels, quite than competitors. Though the episode is, as beforehand famous, fannish, it by no means provides into the bottom pleasure of turning the existence of Pike and Kirk in a single place into a contest, however an avenue for us to be taught one thing about each males. They’re not opposites, they’re each good captains and higher individuals, however they’re certainly completely different, and the methods “A Quality of Mercy” highlights these variations leaves us with fuller photos of Kirk and Pike as characters—each their strengths and flaws in equal measure, though by no means inherently offered as such—in addition to the melancholy that we’ll not often get to know what life would’ve been like ought to they’ve gotten to know one another extra.

That melancholy is led to as “A Quality of Mercy” unfolds its actual secret: from the get-go, our Pike and we as an viewers are skilled to suspect that it is a lesson in future for the captain from Boreth’s monks, to be taught that ought to he keep away from his destiny the universe will likely be thrown into absolute chaos, a lynchpin that cosmic stakes are hung upon. As “Mercy” and its model of “Balance” slowly tip into Pike’s favor, his willingness to all the time take a second to step again and suppose over a call, for higher or worse, resulting in a push in direction of potential peace between the Enterprise and the Romulan Warbird they’re chasing, a lot to the chagrin of Kirk and his intuition. The latter is proved proper when Pike’s hesitance results in the Romulan ship crippling the Farragut and leaving Enterprise badly broken… and in a fair worse place when this alternate model of “Balance” escalates. Pike’s path to peace might on the floor seem to be a nobler means out of issues than the highway we all know Kirk took within the authentic episode, however his indecisiveness opens up the prospect for Romulan duplicity from inside, when one of many Warbird Commander’s subordinates contacts the Star Empire for backup. Things instantly go unhealthy, and as an alternative of “Balance” ending as we all know it, it thrusts Enterprise and the Federation into the primary opening salvo of an open struggle with the Romulans.

It’s there that we be taught the future that issues most in “A Quality of Mercy” will not be James Kirk or Christopher Pike, however the man that ties them each collectively throughout the Enterprise’s historical past: Spock. In this new timeline of occasions, Spock is the one without end bodily modified, mortally wounded within the escape from the Romulan fleet that arrives to again up its Warbird and left in a way not not like the one we all know our Pike will someday discover himself in. As Pike leaves the timeline to return to his personal and the Future Pike that got here from its future—a future the place the Federation/Romulan War kills billions of individuals—he’s instructed of Spock’s significance, not simply to the galaxy as the long run unifier of his separated peoples, however to the very lives and characters of individuals like Pike and Kirk. It’s an ideal inversion of what we must always anticipate from some kind of fated “chosen one” narrative just like the prophecy hanging round Pike’s neck since Discovery might’ve performed out to be. It’s not about Pike realizing that his personal path is already determined for him and accepting that, however realizing that his makes an attempt to alter it, regardless of how noble, might irrevocably alter the lives of the individuals he loves most. And the kind of individual that we’ve come to know him to be, over the course of this debut season of Strange New Worlds, might by no means probably need that.

So, as “A Quality of Mercy” ends, Pike inverts his choice from the opening of the episode—simply as he sought to avoid wasting a life by warning somebody from their tragic, he now seeks to avoid wasting Spocks by sealing his personal. Although Strange New Worlds really ends its season on somewhat tease for what’s to come back a bit after this second (the arrest of Number One for her Illyrian heritage appearing as somewhat cliffhanger to chew on) it’s actually right here that the journey of the present thus far ends. In addressing the largest elephant of the room left standing in each Kirk and Pike’s future, it supplies a beautiful climax to Pike’s arc throughout the season. It additionally proves to us, even within the methods he’s completely different to the person we all know will someday exchange him, what a very good man he’s—and whereas our time left with him is without end restricted, there’s nonetheless loads of locations to push his character.

Which is for one of the best, as a result of if Strange New Worlds needs to maintain displaying us simply how effectively it may hold subsequent to the shadows of a few of Star Trek’s best tv, we’re very happy for it to solely maintain going extra boldly from right here.

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