Review: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, "Once La'an A Time" | Season 4, Episode 9
A sequel no one asked for
One of the things that drove me nuts about Star Trek: Discovery is the way every season’s long arc had to be connected to the protagonist’s personal journey. It wasn’t bad enough that worlds, or even the entire universe, was at stake; what was really supposed to make us care (at least according to that show’s writers) was how it would all affect Michael Burnham. There are shows that use this approach well (Breaking Bad is, in effect, “How can Walter White fuck this up” The Series), but it limits the scope of a franchise that is, at least nominally, about seeking out “new worlds and new civilizations.” It’s not that the personal has no place on Star Trek; it’s more that, for me at least, the show works best when its about people exploring the universe, and not the universe exploring a person.
Strange New Worlds has struggled with this from the start.The main reason it’s worked better than Discovery ever did was that it has a wider base of characters to draw from. The show doesn’t have a single lead, it has Pike and Spock and Una and La’an and Uhura and Chapel and, well, you know the rest. The novelty of dealing with multiple characters’ woes has helped cover for the fact that, ultimately, the scripts of SNW are often just as shallow as their Discovery counterparts; for its first two seasons, the show’s undeniable charm made me more willing to overlook, or even appreciate, things I might have considered as shortcomings on another series.
The novelty has worn off by now. “Once La’an A Time” is another gimmicky episode, and as a viewer and a critic, I found myself split between a light and dark side, much as La’an is at the episode’s climax. On the one hand, this is an often very funny hour. The cast is as game as ever, and the fact that there’s a mix of “normal” characters reacting to the insanity while their doubles devour the scenery helps make it just grounded enough to not feel like complete nonsense.
