“Unusual New Worlds”‘ fourth season has doubled down on the present’s long-established penchant for looking for out new genres past “Trek”‘s conventional frontiers.
Thus far the Enterprise has encountered Martians, hangovers and Muppets, and now its newest mission, “Like Chronitons Via the Hourglass”, has made a detour into full-on cleaning soap opera territory.
Due to the meddling of Q junior Trelane (Rhys Darby), the ship’s lighting is barely off, day-to-day operations are punctuated by advert breaks, and the crew has developed a bent to stare wistfully into the center distance. Reminders that Starfleet’s best reside out their very personal “Days of Our Lives”-style TV present are in all places, however — for all of the deliberate overacting and pauses. In. All of the. Flawed. Locations — is it actually that totally different from common life on a starship? Is not “Star Trek” basically a cleaning soap opera anyway?
Dictionary definitions of cleaning soap operas range, however the common gist is that they comply with the day by day lives of a bunch of characters over an prolonged time period. They are a broad church — the extra glamorous US soaps are very totally different to their gritty, slice-of-life UK counterparts — however they’re often characterised by interpersonal dramas and a long-running nature.
So, except for the truth that episodes of “Star Trek” are bunched into seasons, and there is often a narrative of the week, the franchise successfully suits the invoice.
That wasn’t a lot the case within the Unique Sequence days, the place episodes had been resolutely standalone and many of the regulars on the bridge — even Sulu, Uhura and Chekov — got minimal character growth. Even Uhura’s well-known kiss with Captain Kirk was a one-off affair.
However by the point “The Subsequent Technology” left Spacedock, interpersonal relationships had been very a lot on the agenda — a lot in order that the Enterprise-D wanted a counselor on the ship’s manifest.
From day one, the present was getting busy establishing the backstories of the characters, with Commander Riker’s earlier relationship with Counselor Troi a matter of report, and Captain Picard’s sophisticated previous with Dr Beverly Crusher (her late husband, Jack, was Jean-Luc’s greatest buddy) including an additional frisson to their working relationship.
Even because the present adhered, kind of, to its adventure-of-the-week format, these will they/will not they romances sizzled within the background (albeit on a really low warmth), till belatedly coming to fruition in “Star Trek: Rebellion” and “Star Trek: Picard”, respectively. We additionally met numerous members of Picard, Troi, and Worf’s households, whereas Troi and Worf discovered the time for a quick fling — a lot to Riker’s annoyance.
The extra serialized nature of “Deep House 9” was much more suited to house opera-meets-soap opera storytelling. Because the Dominion Conflict rumbled on within the background, Worf and Jadzia Dax discovered love (and later married) towards a backdrop of the Bajoran Wormhole, earlier than widower Captain Sisko and new flame Kasidy Yates mentioned “I do” for themselves, and have become dad and mom.
Romantic sparks additionally flew between Colonel Kira Nerys and shapeshifting safety chief Odo, and Dr Julian Bashir and Ezri Dax. (The latter took on the Dax symbiont after Jadzia Dax’s dying, a complication that not even the craziest US soaps have dared to discover.) After which there was Chief O’Brien, the primary “Trek” common to juggle his Starfleet duties with a settled residence life.
In the meantime, “Voyager”‘s journey via the Delta Quadrant was punctuated by numerous births, deaths, and marriages, alongside the varied unlikely friendships that developed among the many marooned crew. On “Enterprise”, Journey Tucker managed to search out his well beyond T’Pol’s logical exterior to share a romance with the ship’s resident Vulcan — although solely after his captain had skilled some slightly awkward emotions in the direction of his First Officer in “A Evening in Sickbay”.
Crews in more moderen “Trek” sequence have tended to be extra in contact with their emotions than their predecessors. “Discovery” could also be filled with Thirty first-century tech so superior it resembles magic, however the crew hasn’t developed previous old-school interpersonal drama (and hugging). And at “Starfleet Academy”, coping with hormones tends to be as necessary to the curriculum as studying to deal with the Borg or Nus Braka.
The difference with “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass” is simply that it’s more blatant in its references to soap operas, which — based on Pike’s reaction to Trelane’s shipwide experiment — are apparently still a thing in the 23rd century. Which raises the awkward question of why no one on the Enterprise has noticed that ship’s counselor, Dr Chivers, looks a lot like Marlena Evans from “Days of Our Lives”? Both characters are played by actor Deidre Hall.
Overblown medical conditions like “cosmic amnesia” and “space madness” — or Pike learning he’s Uhura’s long-lost father — intentionally push the episode into the realms of ridiculousness.
Tone down the silliness, however, and these twists wouldn’t look out of place as “Trek” B-plots. Indeed, while La’an’s meeting with Spock’s “evil twin” Sybok is right out of the American soap opera handbook — remember Hans Ramoray, Dr Drake Ramoray’s morally dubious sibling in the “Friends” version of “Days of Our Lives”? — a similar storyline has also played out in “Star Trek”, courtesy of Data and his dodgy big brother Lore.
Ultimately, this episode exists as an excuse for Pike to confront long-buried feelings about the loss of partner Marie Batel, and Juliet, the daughter he had in an imaginary existence.
That the captain can actually hear the episode’s incidental music is kinda weird (that stuff’s supposed to be non-diegetic), but “Like Chronitons through the Hourglass”‘s soap opera stylings should otherwise be all in a day’s work for the captain of the Enterprise.
New episodes of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” debut on Paramount+ on Thursdays.