Spoilers follow for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4, Episode 7, “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass.”
Man, this episode. Five minutes into it, I was ready to tear it apart, but then it had to go and turn into an actual serious story about what is essentially the tragedy of Captain Pike’s life. And not just that, but how he is learning to accept the unfair circumstances of his situation and still be thankful for the moments of beauty and grace and family that he has been afforded in his time, however brief (or cosmically/paradoxically long) that time has been.
Which isn’t to say that I’m not going to tear into this episode some, because it is mostly a waste of what precious little time we have left with Strange New Worlds. Yeah, it’s the “soap opera episode,” and man, at this point I don’t know who the showrunners think they’re aiming some of these stories at.
Rhys Darby is back as Trelane (although they still don’t quite refer to him that way onscreen), the Q-like (or should we just say Q at this point?) being who plagued the crew last season in “Wedding Bell Blues” and who, of course, will also eventually cause problems for the Enterprise when Captain Kirk is running things, as seen in The Original Series episode “The Squire of Gothos” (where he was played by William Campbell). This time around, Trelane has forced the Enterprise crew to live out a soap opera – just like on the old tee-vee, dontcha know! – complete with overlit sets, awkward close-ups, ridiculous plot developments, and over-the-top acting.
So yeah, it’s yet another concept/gimmick episode. This is just what this show is now, I guess, and while it’s cute for a few minutes, the soap opera approach is not sustainable for a full-length episode. Which is probably why the show has to switch back to being, you know, a normal Star Trek episode about 36 minutes in. And that’s what’s so frustrating about “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass” – not that it’s a dumb soap opera riff, but that it’s actually got a great Captain Pike story hidden inside it, albeit one that’s under-serviced because of the dumb soap opera riff.
I’ve given Anson Mount some grief lately about playing Pike in a way that was diminishing the captain and his status as the leader of an entire starship full of officers and crew. But then he comes along and acts the hell out of this episode, which is ultimately about his ongoing sense of loss and grief – and his inability to deal with either, as has been hinted at earlier in the season – over the loss of his lover Marie Batel (Melanie Scrofano) in last season’s finale.
And it wasn’t just Marie that he lost, but also the life that he lived with her – a complete life, where they had a daughter named Juliet (played by Anna Mirodin) and eventually aged into their golden years, all in a mere moment’s time in regular reality. Mount brings it in full force here, as he finally sits with the ship’s counsellor (played by soap opera legend Deidre Hall, of Days of Our Lives fame) and confronts what he’s been through. His memories of his daughter who never existed, and yet did exist – “I taught her to read” – are so touching not only because of the writing, but also thanks to how Mount handles the scene, and it all just further drives home what a wasted opportunity the prior 36 minutes had been.
“Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass” is further hampered by the inclusion of Trelane, who is nothing but a bystander when all is said and done, literally watching events unfold from a TV control room. He’s surprised when Juliet manifests as an evocation of Pike’s subconscious, and he has no bearing on how Pike deals with that situation. He’s just there, presumably because co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman likes TOS, and that just isn’t enough, particularly when the character plays as nothing more than a lame imitation of the William Campbell original.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-4-episode-7-recap-review-soap-opera
