M'hanit

Story: Children of the Comet
Written By: Henry Alonso Myers & Sarah Tarkoff
Series: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Year: 2022

I really want to like this show, I am just finding it very hard to do so.  All the quippy banter, and unlikable secondary characters really hurt this show badly.  The worst offender in my opinion is Chapel, who is just this snarky teenager from the 21st century, and not an enlightened human from the 23rd century. Every scene she is in I hate her a little more I think.  Then we also have the other baby person, that Khan descendent or whatever she is.  I hate her too.  I don't hate this version of Uhura, but I just find her presence to be pointless. This just has to be the least creative modern Trek show in terms of coming up with an interesting new crew.  Say what you will about Disco, at the very least it came up with Saru.  At least it had mostly new characters as our new crew.  This show was already going to have Pike and Spock, and even Number One, and they struggled to come up with a new crew to surround them with...they had to supplement Pike with Kirk's crew because the writers and producers are devoid of any real ideas.  I guess I like the Aenar Engineer a bit.

Sigh...moving on, the actual episode...it's okay I suppose.  I don't think it is a terrible idea but I wish it had just been this mysterious comet with a force field and seemingly heading for destruction, and they just removed the alien threat of the shepherds.  It isn't like they added a lot, other than maybe a boring action scene, but overall, this would have been more interesting if they couldn't figure out how to save this planet from the comet and they could not move the comet until they figured out the music thing.  But these writers do not know how to come up with an interesting sci-fi idea without shoe-horning in some lame action schlock as well.  

I suppose this show isn't helped by my recent decision to watch all of Sean Baker's films.  He makes indie movies that are highly realistic and he knows how to show emotions and character decisions not through quippy irritating dialogue, but visually, with actors emoting. It honestly makes this seem even worse.  

NEXT TIME: Illyrians