Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3.5: Endearing Pseudo-Science

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One of the most endearing things about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is how it picks up the flavor, the ambience, the beat of the original Star Trek that was on NBC for three years in the 1960s.  And that's as it should be, since SNW takes place right before TOS, with many of the same characters -- Spock, Chapel, Uhura, Scotty, and of course Pike -- on board the Enterprise at a younger age (even though Pike looks older in SNW) than they were in TOS.

It's difficult to describe exactly what it was in the ambience of TOS that made it so appealing.  There was an innocence, sometimes almost a clumsiness, not just in the way TOS was filmed, but in the stories themselves.  It was, after all, a successor to Captain Video and his Video Rangers from the 1950s on the Dumont network, which I saw and loved as a kid, too.  Both TOS and Captain Video tackled complex topics (the fate of Tobor the robot on Captain Video is a great example), and they did that it in a way that was relatable if not completely scientifically clear.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

The quest for immortality, and its connection to quantum physics, was a great example in SNW 3.5.  The science wasn't wrong per se, but it was not quite right, either.  It was rather an extrapolation from the quantum mechanical principle that one thing could be in two different states at the same time.  Weaving that into a story that included monsters taking over some of the Enterprise crew was a typical TOS move, though, improbable to the point of being cartoonish, even laughable, even as people were dying.  But like the episodes in TOS, it all somehow worked to make a refreshing hour.

It also was good to see Spock, Chapel, and La'an and their complex almost romantic relationship, as well as Pike with his true love.  I'll be back soon with another review -- very soon, I've somehow fallen an episode behind in my viewing of SNW.  Hmmm ... could be a QM time-warp in my neck of the woods.

See also Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3.1-3.3: Gorn, Spock & Chapel, and The Walking Dead ... 3.4: Lots of Laughs and Serious Business

And see also Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2.1: Nurse Chapel ... 2.2: Racism and Sexism in the Courtroom ... 2.3: Time Travel and Alternate Universes ... 2.5: Chapel and Spock ... 2.6: Jimmy Kirk ... 2.7: Pike, Spock, and Boimler ... 2.8: Ethically Wrenching ... 2.9: The Operetta ... 2.10: Young Scotty and Five Other Great Things about This Season 2 Finale

And see also Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.1-1.2: Great Characters, Actors, Stories ... 1.3: "Instead of terraforming planets, we modify ourselves ..." ... 1.4: The Gorn and the Wub ... 1.5 Going to the Chapel ... 1.6: Two Stories ... 1.7: The Kiss ... 1.8: Ends of the Continuum ... 1.9: Momentous! ... 1.10: Everything!

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