Unusual New Worlds has been having a tough go of it this season. From tonal misfires to episodes which have swung for gimmicks over partaking with the fabric questions they elevate, the present has traded depth for breadth when it comes to the sheer number of areas it explores. However one factor has grow to be clear over the course of the season that turns into crystal in its penultimate episode: the one time the present is prepared to knuckle down and actually focus is when it desires to trip on the coattails of the Trek that got here earlier than it.
Now that is one thing that the present has performed to nice success earlier than—largely by going past that preliminary step of fawning context in relation to the unique season. Its first season finale, “A High quality of Mercy,” nailed a pitch-perfect mirror to one of many all-time nice Trek tales, “Stability of Terror,” whereas nonetheless deftly weaving its personal spin on issues by way of Pike’s arc wrangling together with his future future as first teased in Discovery. Even this season, “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail” was clearly arrange as a prequel run-up to placing the younger Jim Kirk alongside his future crewmates from the Enterprise however nonetheless targeted on telling a contemporary new story about Kirk’s struggles with the pains of command.
Sadly, “Terrarium” fails to do one thing in an analogous vein, telling a flat, predictable story with considered one of its most perpetually underserved characters in Erica Ortegas—resulting in an episode that might be middle-of-the-road forgettable with out its last-minute try to try to connect itself as a direct prequel to the most effective tales of the unique collection, making it finally look a lot worse compared to the 60-year-old materials it’s struggling to match.
“Terrarium” focuses on an exploratory mission gone flawed, when Ortegas is distributed on a solo expedition to chart gravimetric fluctuations in a area of area, solely to seek out her shuttle swallowed up by a sudden wormhole’s look, catapulting her away to a distant system the place lots of of moons are slowly caught up in big cloud storms brought on by the funky orbit of a close-by fuel big. With little hope of rescue and along with her emergency provides broken within the crash, Erica has to discover a solution to survive lengthy sufficient to speak to Enterprise that she’s nonetheless standing, whereas the beleaguered bridge crew battle to hunt for her earlier than being known as away to ship very important vaccination provides to a struggling colony.
The premise is nice, and it ought to have been a long-awaited showcase for Melissa Navia’s repeatedly sidelined pilot—a personality that has recurrently been denied focus time and time once more on Unusual New Worlds, solely to be caught with a singular figuring out trait (that she “flies the ship,” which grew to become overused to the purpose of catchphrase by the beginning of this season). Season three tried to do one thing along with her within the climactic moments of the premiere, suggesting that her encounter with the Gorn throughout final season’s finale would humble the boisterous lieutenant as she navigated PTSD, however the season (and the present’s broader need to reset to a established order for its episodic format) has largely ignored that potential narrative… and, properly, largely given extra to do to Erica’s brother Beto.
Till now. Naturally, Erica and we be taught shortly sufficient that she’s not alone on the moon she’s crash-landed on, discovering herself rescued from skittering native wildlife by an injured interloper within the type of a Gorn. However except for an preliminary second of shock, none of “Terrarium” is actually about Erica coping with her trauma or her lingering emotions about each the Gorn and her half within the Federation-Klingon Conflict. Actually, regardless of being the starring point of interest, the episode doesn’t actually have a lot to say about Erica in any respect.
We don’t actually be taught far more about her or see a lot of her course of throughout her expertise. She will be able to solely start to bond with the Gorn that saved her when she realizes that the Gorn is each feminine and a pilot—just about Erica’s solely defining traits as a personality herself. The character banter is generally one-sided, as even with some transforming of her tricorder, Erica can solely talk with the Gorn straight by way of affirmative/detrimental questions. It’s additionally a comparatively easy episode, with little in the way in which of problem to Erica and the Gorn past the ticking clock of an incoming fuel storm nebulously sitting on the perimeter of their gradual exploration of commonality.
Star Trek has performed loads of episodes about foisting collectively two unlikely characters right into a annoying scenario, simply to see them overcome the hurdle of communication and survive. There are episodes like “Rise,” which duties Tuvok and Neelix with working collectively to restore an orbital elevator in Voyager, or “The Ascent” in Deep House 9, the place Quark and Odo have to assist one another climb a mountain whereas stranded on a planet. There are much more cerebral episodes about fostering communication, just like the TNG basic “Darmok.”
However “Terrarium” has nothing to say about both its premise or its central character because it predictably strikes from beat to beat, or something about its central battle over Erica’s previous with the Gorn. Arguably it nearly forgets that battle even existed within the first place, with Eria nearly instantly being effective with having to work with a Gorn to outlive, resulting in an episode that finally ends up feeling prefer it’s counting right down to an inevitable conclusion as Erica and the Gorn work and work on methods to ship indicators, and the crew aboard Enterprise (primarily Uhura) work and work to seek out methods to maintain on the lookout for their lacking crewmate till they will’t.
So when “Terrarium” reaches that inevitable conclusion—Erica and the Gorn work out a dangerous solution to ignite the fuel storm to behave as a “flare” to alert Enterprise because it desperately scans moon after moon—the episode has one final likelihood to say one thing when not less than one shocking factor occurs. As La’an and a safety staff beam right down to Erica’s location, and he or she comes bursting out of the protecting pod she and the Gorn shaped to fend off the firestorm, there’s no time for Erica to elucidate context, so La’an and her officers merely shoot the Gorn lifeless, a lot to Erica’s horror.
Once more, the potential is there, even when the episode didn’t actually fairly set it up. Having Erica’s notion of the Gorn be so reworked by this expertise that she feels grief for a response that, an episode in the past, she would’ve agreed with would have been an attention-grabbing place to depart issues on, however “Terrarium” has simply spent 50-odd minutes largely having ignored that change itself, instantly having Erica be effective to cohabit this moon with a Gorn. We don’t see that transformation actually occur within the narrative, so her upset largely rings hole.
However that’s not the place the episode ends. Because the staff (and a distraught Erica) is beaming again to Enterprise, every part however Erica freezes for a second. A flickering mild that she’s seen within the distance right here and there all through the episode shines brighter and brighter till it reveals a humanoid type, a bald, pale being in shimmering clothes… who instantly reveals that they had been testing Erica and the Gorn pilot and are a Metron, the species that may, because the determine tells Erica right here, go on to seek out extra methods to check the connection between humanity and Gorn when it finds Captain Kirk and a Gorn warrior to purpose at one another within the occasions of the iconic Trek episode, “Enviornment.”
“Terrarium” isn’t only a boring episode of Star Trek, then. By making it a direct prequel to “Enviornment,” it actively lessens itself just by not having the ability to match the depth of an episode that’s nearly six a long time outdated. What makes “Enviornment” so nice is the acknowledgement that our hero, Captain Kirk, is imperfect. The take a look at the Metron makes in “Enviornment,” forcing Kirk and the Gorn to struggle to the dying to avoid wasting the lives of their crews, asks Kirk to wrestle with the bottom impulse of violence that humanity is able to—is nonetheless able to, regardless of having overcome a lot to ascend to the celebrities. The concluding dialog of the episode sees Kirk straight acknowledge to Spock that he’s, and the remainder of humanity are nonetheless always reckoning with their shared previous and historical past of aggression as they attempt to be higher and adapt to their enlightened utopia.
“Terrarium” merely simply has Erica Ortegas be enlightened from nearly the get-go. There isn’t any battle, both along with her personal previous trauma or with the previous monstrous lens Unusual New Worlds has solely seen the Gorn by way of. They instantly bond and get on, and the tragedy is that she couldn’t talk this enlightened nature she developed in a heartbeat in time to her crewmates (largely as a result of the present couldn’t sq. the circle on having a “good” Gorn go on its merry means between the occasions of Unusual New Worlds and unique Star Trek).
It’s an episode that has so little dramatic weight or depth in stark distinction to “Enviornment,” even with out the shoehorned direct connection to it. However by willingly foisting that connection on itself, it invitations the comparability itself, and might solely come throughout as distinctly unfavorable subsequent to a six-decade-old piece of tv. There isn’t any enhancement by having this episode be a prequel to “Enviornment,” past the truth that Unusual New Worlds is more and more obsessed, because it stares down the barrel of its personal finish, with the truth that it has to pave the way in which to the unique Star Trek.
In doing so, it could actually solely do its personal characters and narratives a disservice. However contemplating the way in which a lot of this season has gone already, it was already doing that even with out the prequel-itis.
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