Review: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, "Like Chronitons Through The Hourglass" | Season 4, Episode 7
Too much of a good thing can be bad; what about too much of a too much thing?
Oh hey, it’s another gimmick episode. How expectedly unexpected.
We’re at the point now where I’m running out of ways to explain how wrong-headed this is. We’ve talked about how weird it is to focus on gimmicks in such a short season, right? And how the whole point of a “gimmick” is to offer a change of pace from the usual, and how that’s no longer applicable when gimmick episodes outnumber so-called “normal” episodes? Of course we have. I’ve tried to be polite about it. I’ve considered that the actors might want to stretch a little, and I’ve appreciated the playfulness. Hell, unlike a lot of you, I even had fun with the puppet episode.
But come on. “Like Chronitons Through The Hourglass” isn’t the worst hour of television I’ve ever watched–it’s not even the worst episode of Strange New Worlds. (Although it does reference the worst episode.) I laughed a few times, and I was occasionally charmed. Yet no matter how much fun the actors were clearly having, and how many jokes landed, it’s impossible to shake the feeling that this is just wasted time. There are three episodes left this season. There’s been no effort at a macro plot, which isn’t a huge crime, but there’s also been precious little development of, well, anyone. Instead, we get escapism inside our escapism.
