Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x01 "The Broken Circle"
Logline
A distress call from Lt. Noonien-Singh compels Spock to disobey orders and take the USS Enterprise and its crew into disputed space, risking renewed hostilities with the Klingons in a bid to aid their shipmate.
Written by Henry Alonso Myers & Akiva Goldsman
Directed by Chris Fisher
A note about episode discussions on startrek.website
Right now, the plan is to post the /c/startrek discussion when the episode drops on Thursdays. Once the global community has had some time to watch and digest what they've seen, the /c/daystrominstitute discussion will go live on Sundays for a more in-depth analysis. This is subject to change as we evaluate what works best for the community as a whole.
At first glance I was unsure about the new engineer but by the end of her first scene I loved her. I wish she was featured a bit more but I'm sure we will see more soon.
Carol Kane seems like she's being set up as the central mystery or resolution of this season. Too many little nods that she is more than she seems, even when what she seems is already pretty fantastical.
Have we heard of the Lanthanites before? The concept of an entire race of "nearly immortal" aliens living on earth undetected until the 22nd century (starting when??) was a pretty serious infodump. I wonder if that's just worldbuilding or if it'll prove important later on.
Which honestly makes you wonder why they created the Lanthanites for this season rather than just making her El-Aurian. I also didn't love the accent, even though I can accept it as just part of "let Carol Kane do her thing".
I think the refugees seen at the beginning of Generations might be part of the first formal contact between El-Aurians and the Federation. At least that was always my impression.
It seems to be a totally brand new "we're going to pretend it's been there all along and nobody every mentioned it before" race of aliens. I'm curious to see how they develop this idea.