Review: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, "Level Five Transporter Accident" | Season 4, Episode 5

All right, let’s talk about “gimmick episodes.” I don’t know who first coined the term, but it was, for a while, a useful one; when talking about shows with 22+ episodes a season, it was worth giving a name to episodes that did something so far outside of the norm that their strangeness was their main appeal. The all-singing episode of Buffy, for instance, or (more relevant to today’s topic) the Angel episode where the titular character is transformed into a puppet; while neither break the rules of their established universe, both storylines are clearly contrived with the end goal (singing, felt) in mind. 

It’s a way of spicing things up, and both “Once More With Feeling” and “Smile TIme” are well-regarded by fans and critics. But the thing about gimmicks is that they offer a change of pace from our usual expectations. At best, they’re about livening up a familiar routine; at worst, they’re shallow and unconvincing, like so many singing episodes have been in the wake of “Feeling.” But what to do with a show that only has ten episodes a season? What do you call it when such a show is already mostly gimmicks to begin with?

I’m not sure. And it’s also probably over-simplifying to say Strange New Worlds is all gimmicks. Of the five episodes we’ve seen so far this season, you could argue two were gimmick-focused, but “Human Best Friend” wasn’t that weird, and the gimmick of “A Case Chiaroscuro” is just the color filter on the camera. It’s possible to make a case that “Level Five Transporter Accident” is the first real gimmick episode of the season, and yet part of the reason I have mixed feelings about is that it doesn’t feel like a surprise so much as an inevitability.