Number One Secret

Story: Ghost of Illyria
Written By: Akela Cooper & Bill Wolkoff
Series: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Year: 2022

Finally, an episode that doesn't fill me with complete disdain for this show.  This is the first time the show has felt like the promised "episodic adventure" Trek we were promised. Or I suppose it is the first time this show has felt like actual Star Trek.  I still hate most of the supporting cast, but at least this one focused primarily on Una Chin-Riley, or Number One, and she doesn't feel like a quippy teenager but an actual functioning and competent adult I believe would be working on a deep space mission in the Trek universe.  

The Enterprise is investigating a colony once populated by Illyrians, who have seemingly disappeared.  The big thing about Illyrians is that they genetically modify themselves and are therefore ineligible to join the Federation.  Apparently they were in one episode of Enterprise and I don't remember it at all.  I actually went back and read my review for the episode they featured in and I didn't even mention them, and then I went to the Wiki page and discovered the Illyrians were the aliens that archer attacked and stole their warp core, one of the darkest spots on his record as a Captain.   You know what that has to do with this episode?  Nothing. I just enjoyed refreshing my memory I guess.  

Anyhow, a big ion storm is coming and the landing party need to get back to the ship.  The storm interferes with communications and transporters so they need to move fast. Unfortunately, Pike couldn't reach Spock at first so he goes on foot to get him while the rest of the party are beamed aboard.  The storm gets too strong and until it passes they have to wait to beam up Pike and Spock. While Number One is in charge on the ship, a strange new disease begins sweeping across the ship, one that somehow got through the transporter's biofilters and is now making those affected obsessed with light and willing to intake a fatal amount of light and heat.  Eventually, Number One must admit why she has been immune to the disease and was able to fight it off despite being in the initial landing party: she is in fact an Illyrian herself and lied to get into Starfleet.  Using her, Dr. M'Benga is able to synthesize a cure. 

The B-story involves Pike and Spock surviving the storm and discovering odd light beings in the storm who may in fact have been the Illyrians who disappeared. It seems this specific colony wanted to join the Federation and experimented with removing their genetic augments, and this is likely result of those experiments...they have become light beings, and without Number One's DNA, the whole Enterprise crew might have become those too. 

There are some issues with this episode. I just absolutely hate the La'an character and dislike the fact that she is known to be Khan's descendent. I get that Illyrians being augmented gave her something for character development and so she had to have her moment in this episode but her moment was mostly fighting Number One and I found this to be the least compelling moment of this episode. I would jettison this character as quickly as I could if I had any say (and I've looked into it and it appears I do not have any say).  I just hate how much modern Trek wants to evoke Khan.  He was a great villain for one episode and one movie, but my god...he isn't THAT interesting.  

Another issue is the cause of the biofilters missing this problem come from Dr. M'Benga's emergency medical transporter, which he never had upgraded because he has been secretly keeping his daughter in the pattern buffer until he can find a cure for his disease.  He is apparently part Mr. Freeze. This is an interesting character issue for M'Benga...but how did this affect the biofilters? They didn't beam up though his transporter. I am not sure, maybe I wasn't paying the closest attention...maybe Hemmer transferred power from the medical transporter to the regular one and that is how it got through?  But did the biofilter on the regular transporter just stop working then?  I dunno.  This is also a minor gripe but when asked how Hemmer solved the transporter problem he just replied "I'm a genius" and this is the kind of lazy writing I need to stop.  This show is always introducing a problem, immediately solving said problem and then instead of explaining how, a character makes a quip and they move on.  Quit quipping! Be professional!

Anyhow, the episode ends first with Number One resigning due to her lies and breaking regulation, and Pike rejecting it because she is too damn good and just saved the ship.  She then confronts M'Benga who reveals the daughter thing and also basically tries to resign but she is like "nah we will just designate some power for your daughter" and now both of these criminals will continue in their posts. Yay!

Despite my issues, this was actually a good episode.  One of the most Trek-like episodes of this franchise in a while. I want more like this, and less like the first two episodes please.  What's that? I still don't have a say?  WHY NOT?

NEXT TIME: Space Pirates