Yes I know I’m behind everyone else!
First the away team spends a long time debating if they should proceed or… step outside for five seconds to call the ship. They ultimately decide that stepping outside for five seconds is not feasible.
But then literally one minute later Ensign Gamble is somehow beamed up. Presumably they must have called the ship to do this? Did they just… leave out the part about the (now obvious and real) danger? Was there a scene where Pike said “ok yeah his eyes are gone but you can keep going”?
Then later in the episode the away team spends a long time talking about trust and friendship while debating if they should walk on an invisible walkway instead of just like, I don’t know, tapping it lightly with their toe or throwing a pebble on it first?
The Ensign Gamble B-plot was good and freaky and featured some great acting by everyone involved. But the A plot felt like it was vibe-scripted! I love SNW but come on.
I think “vibe scripted” is harsh. The writers were bumping against the restriction that they need ::: spoiler spoiler Chapel blood next to anybody when they enter or exit the place. That’s why the alien buys it. Scaredy pants tries to go out on his own and gets fried. They wanted to avoid another entrance/exit on screen to keep us guessing how this Star Trek Inception works. :::
It’s a version of “commander, you better take a look at this.” It keeps the suspense up for the audience as Riker saunters over, maneuvering over multiple chairs, to take a look at the corpse of the mortal enemy of the federation. In a real military, Worf would say something like “heads up, Romulan casualties on the premise, everybody be on the lookout.” That’s to prevent the commander or anybody else from getting shot by a possible half-dead Rom in the rubble. But that’s not great television. It’s just script writing 101.
I understand the reasoning from a suspense perspective but manufactured suspense does not feel suspenseful. Think about it: why show the entire long debate about leaving or not if none of them actually care? The only thing that makes sense is that once they understood the danger was real there was an off-camera conversation with Pike or Una wherein Pike or Una presumably told them that the danger was acceptable and to proceed. But if we accept that the conversation happened off-camera, then the presence of the debate scene doesn’t make sense from a storytelling standpoint.
I have done that. I’m just more forgiving than you. They may have shot the go ahead scene and cut it for an unrelated reason. They may have decided not to want to get Romijn or Mount do another ADR session, which costs money. The Paramount/Skydance merger loomed heavily over this season’s production with tight budgets and uncertainty for the future. I’m not saying the episode is perfectly put together. I guess what I am saying is that you are hung up on one detail here. I suggest you give it the Elsa treatment.
This is my perspective: this is a silly show. They did a musical episode, which I really didn’t like. They did a documentary episode, which I could’ve done without. I feel Babylon 5 did a much better job with this kind of meta TV episode. They took the established “space dad” Pike character and made him unsure and hesitant this season and I don’t know why. They are taking a soap approach to relationships within the show. The show is a dead man walking with its end after 5 more episodes already decided. All new Trek shows have already been axed and I’m not optimistic about the success of Academy. S31… With all of this going on in the background I choose to smile that SNW exists and not cry because the stories are wonky here or there.
Yeah like I said: “vibes”