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Photo: Michael Gibson/Paramount+/Michael Gibson/Paramount+
Here the other shoe drops. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has been setting up a full-on direct conflict with the Gorn since first alluding to the brutal lizard people in the first season, then suggested that conflict was imminent in “The Broken Circle,” the second-season premiere. Since then: nothing, or at least nothing beyond faint hints that the Federation/Gorn cold war was about to turn hot. Technically, that status doesn’t change with “Hegemony,” in which our Starfleet heroes find themselves fighting some fearsome Gorn foes on a planet with Earthborn settlers that are not part of the Federation. But for Pike and the rest of the Enterprise, this proves to be a distinction without a difference. Whether you’re technically at war with your enemy doesn’t matter when you’re getting blown to smithereens.
The episode opens just outside Federation space with a Captain’s Log entry from a different captain than usual. It’s Batel, who’s traveled to Parnassus Beta to help a colony modeled after a 20th-century Midwestern town. It looks like a nice place, and one completely unprepared for any kind of hostile alien force should one arrive. It does, of course, but not until a scene between Chapel and Batel reveals they’ve both been helping out on the surface since last we saw them. When Chapel beams up to the Cayuga, Batel’s ship, it seems like business as usual for a Federation outing, but she and Batel will have profoundly different experiences when the next plot twist arrives: the arrival of the Gorn.
For Batel, that happens mid-phone call after Pike reaches out to check up on her. After their call is cut short, a shadow fills the sky, but the Parnassus is able to get out a distress call. That sends the Enterprise into rescue mode, but with a warning from Admiral April that any interference could spark a war with the Gorn Hegemony. But when the ship reaches the colony, that warning becomes virtually academic. The Gorn have struck first.
Three problems await them when they arrive: (1) figuring out what’s going on on the planet’s surface after the Gorn have blacked out communication, (2) trying to locate any survivors of the destroyed Cayuga (but especially Nurse Chapel), and (3) the arrival of even more Gorn, who’ve shown up with a message. Actually, it’s really more an image than a message, but the meaning is clear: there’s a line, and you guys need to stay on your side of it, or there will be more trouble.
Starfleet agrees to honor the line, but Pike has other ideas, and he has a secret cache of anti-Gorn weapons to help him. He also, thanks to Ortegas, has a plan to get past the line without the Gorn noticing them by posing as garbage (just like in those old zombie movies that Spock needs to have explained to him). It works (with some help from Ortegas’s piloting skills), but trouble awaits them on the surface. What was once a small, 20th-century Midwestern town (sort of) is now a post-apocalyptic wasteland complete with random fires and a weird Gorn beacon that explains the communications blackout. What’s more, they’ve got hungry Gorn younglings to deal with, which means it’s time to hide.
That they’re not behaving like typical Gorn younglings — cooperating rather than fighting one another — is a bit baffling, but not as baffling as sensor readings of human life where no life appears to exist. When the Enterprise landing party finds themselves trapped in a force field, the mystery is solved and a new old character enters the stage. It’s Lieutenant Montgomery Scott (Martin Quinn)!
The face is new, but the personality, accent, and resourcefulness are unmistakable. Having survived a previous Gorn attack, Scotty has no plans of falling prey to them now. (Hence the trap.) He’s also able to point Pike to a few survivors. These include Batel, who’s happy to see him but also mad he’s there because now he’s in danger too. And Batel understands just how deep the trouble goes: teleporters won’t work, and there’s not enough room in the shuttle.
But the trouble isn’t limited to the surface of Parnassus Beta. The Enterprise has problems, too. Barely masking his heartbreak, Spock defies logic and continues to look for signs of life on the Cayuga, one sign of life in particular. “Things did not end well between us,” he tells Una, who thinks his continued search will prove futile but lets him carry on anyway. Meanwhile, Uhura shares what she hopes isn’t a crazy plan with Pelia. After triangulating the source of the Gorn’s interference, they can throw some space junk at it to knock it out, avoiding the sort of direct attack that would start a war. All they’ll need to do is put some rockets on a chunk of the Cayuga and send it down.”No human can do this,” Spock says of the “near-impossible task.” So he volunteers to do it himself.
Back on the surface, Scotty has a so-crazy-it-might-just-work plan of his own. In fact, it’s one that has worked, one that will allow Pike’s crew and the survivors to slip away unnoticed by mimicking the Gorn’s signals. But doing this will also require an act of stupid bravery: retrieving a crucial device from the downed shuttle. To get the job done, Pike, Batel, and their new pal Scotty head out into the potentially Gorn-filled night.
As they set out, we learn that Chapel somehow has survived, though her continued survival seems doubtful. She can’t signal the Enterprise, she’s about to run out of oxygen, and, worst of all, there’s a full-grown Gorn with her on what’s left of the Cayuga. This is the first look anyone from the Enterprise has gotten at an adult Gorn, and it’s, perhaps unsurprisingly, pretty terrifying. It even nearly kills Spock, whose timely arrival allows them to fight the Gorn together and exit, holding hands, before the Cayuga remains begin their descent.
On the surface, there’s good news and bad. The good news: though a Gorn youngling has found Batel, Pike, and Scotty, it chooses not to attack, allowing them to retrieve the parts they need. The bad news: the youngling doesn’t attack because Batel has been implanted with Gorn eggs. Batel, like Hemmer (R.I.P.) before her, wants to sacrifice herself to save the others, but Pike, being Pike, says, “There’s got to be a way to save you.” Then, in a bit of fortuitous timing, the space junk takes out the beacon.
Then the transporting commences. First, Spock and Chapel come aboard, then Pike, Scotty, and Batel, who’s agreed to let the Enterprise med team attempt to de-Gorn her, but only if Chapel agrees to take her out if it doesn’t work. Then matters get worse: the Enterprise can’t locate the rest of the landing crew and the survivors to beam them up because they’ve already been beamed up by the Gorn, who’ve begun attacking the Enterprise. Starfleet orders the Enterprise to leave the area, which would require Pike to abandon his people. And for once, our decisive captain seemingly doesn’t know what to do. To be continued…
And with that, this terrific second season of Strange New Worlds ends, to be resumed at some later date (assuming the ongoing labor dispute ever ends). It’s a throwback to cliffhangers of old, particularly “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1,” the famous season three-ending episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that seemingly left Riker with no choice but to destroy the Borgified Captain Picard. Where Strange New Worlds goes from here remains to be seen, but it’s left a lot of central characters in mortal danger and one well-liked occasional character seemingly doomed to produce Gorn babies. How will it all work out? Will it all work out? Those questions will have to wait.
• Strange New Worlds has never attempted to hide that its version of the Gorn is heavily inspired by the Xenomorphs of the Alien series. Last season’s “All Who Wander” pays homage to Aliens pretty directly, and “Hegemony” goes even further, revealing full-grown Gorn that bear a strong resemblance to the Xenomorphs in a scene directly inspired by the climax of Alien. Even the divisive Alien 3 gets a nod when the Gorn youngling refuses to attack the implanted Batel.
• The name “The Gorn Hegemony” doesn’t mince words, does it?
• The “small-town model” is an interesting idea. Is it just a matter of romanticizing the 20th-century small town, or was there really something to that model that could be applied elsewhere? Either way, it’s in the great Trek tradition of visiting a planet that looks a lot like Earth (and, presumably, not having to do that much in the way of production design to use it).
• Chances are you haven’t seen Martin Quinn before. His film and TV credits aren’t that extensive, but he does have a small part (as “Wee Cousin Rob”) in an episode of the great Derry Girls. He’s fun here, and it looks like we’ll be seeing more of him. He’s also, unlike previous Scottys, actually Scottish.
• “I’m sorry.” “Save it. There’ll be time later.” Clearly the Spock/Chapel story is not over, despite its turn for the worse.
• Everyone rises to the occasion of a particularly tense episode, but Anson Mount has to be the MVP. Instead of barking orders, Pike turns inspiringly calm and focused. And he’s not above giving Chapel a big hug when he learns she’s alive. That makes his frozen moment at the end all the more unsettling.
• “One of my best students, who sadly received some of my worst grades.” Just a reminder that Carol Kane has been a fun addition this season.
• This episode was written by Henry Alonso Myers, the series showrunner with Akiva Goldman. He has six writing credits, but this is his first solo credit. It’s directed by Maja Vrvilo, who also helmed season one’s “Children of the Comet.”
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