[SNW] Season 1, Episode 2: Children of the Comet
Rating: 3
Children of the Comet puts the spotlight on Cadet Uhura for another solid episode from Strange New Worlds. Like Star Trek often does, they try to set her apart by casting her as a genius, combined with another Trek go-to: the nervous new kid. What works best, aside from Celia Rose Gooding’s charming performance, is that Uhura isn’t actually very sure she’s made for Starfleet. It’s a writing choice that could be risky, but it’s interesting to see the rest of the crew, who have worked so hard to get to the Enterprise, react to her relative ambivalence. Plus the tragic circumstances that led Uhura down the road to Starfleet make her decision believable and sympathetic.
In this week’s story we sort of get another thorny General Order 1 issue, when a comet is in a collision course with an inhabited planet. It seems saving a pre-warp civilization from extinction isn’t against the rules yet (an aspect of the Prime Directive we’ve always disliked here at LWST) because there’s no indication that they aren’t allowed to alter the comet’s course. Even if it were an issue, the presence of a mysterious alien force on the comet renders any GO1 concerns moot – though they do end up changing the ecosystem of the planet in a huge way and treat it with a strange degree of casual positivity. The Trek procedural aspects of this episode are really well executed and fun, and there are some nice ambiguities about the nature of the comet by the end. We get into more destiny and vaguely spiritual type stuff though, which Trek is never very good at, and it connects to Pike’s personal story a little too neatly.
Read more at Memory Alpha
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