Here’s a short little video I found linked to on another board, with the crew showing off their costumes for the previous episode, “The Elysian Kingdom.” They seem to be having fun, especially the Hemmer and Spock actors. The actress who plays Chapel never seems to not be having fun.
‘The ship is built with many of the same parts as the Constitution class’
So don’t be surprised if it looks like we’ve just thrown some dirt over the usual sets.
This episode is built with many of the same parts as Aliens.
Also, why not just make the whole damn ship cold?
No joke, this episode I kept calling the little girl Newt in my head.
Good episode though. With the exception that…
They killed off Hemmer who was becoming one of my favorite characters. Still, it answers my question of where he was by the time of TOS.
This show continues to master the balance between humor and drama. My favorite scene was at breakfast. Every part of that. That scene is what makes this show great.
Man, when this show goes dark, it goes dark.
Too bad the show doesn’t come out on Mondays. We could have had Gorn on the 4th of July.
Halfway through this episode, I was thinking that, despite how much I am truly enjoying the show, that they are ‘borrowing’ an awful lot from other Trek episodes, and now from Aliens. I was just starting to think they are treading a fair bit of familiar territory. Then they went and killed off Hemmer! That, coupled with Spock’s reaction and Chapel’s comforting him, elevated this above simply rehashing old sci-fi plots. Add in Uhura’s arc and Hemmer’s contribution to it, and I really can’t complain. Yet another great episode.
Honestly, at this point, I’m just looking for them to screw up and disappoint, because few shows, especially Trek shows, gets this much right this quickly. This has become my most-anticipated show every week. It’s just too bad there’s only one episode left this season.
My biggest disappointment is that I really liked Hemmer. It helped that his voice reminds me of Jeffrey Combs, one of my favorite sci-fi/horror actors, but that wasn’t all of it. He was an interesting, well-developed character. At least we can look forward to the introduction of a new major character.
STAR TREK: ALIENS. Brilliant. Possibly my favorite episode of Trek ever. It’s amazing how much I feel for characters I just met a few weeks ago.
Yeah. That’s what happens when a show doesn’t wait to do 100% of the character development on the episode where you kill them. (I’m looking at you, Cry Trek: Cry Space Cry.)
And Kirk managed to take on one of these bare handed? How did these critters achieve space flight?
Unbeknownst to Kirk, he was facing a Gorn nerd.
Its Kirk…come on.
But seriously in the Blish adaptation, unless im remembering wrong, the Metron says he was going to kill the winner and his crew.
Since I like to ascribe PvP levels of awareness to the Gorn, maybe the Gorn captain was trying to sort exactly that out while he fought Kirk. In other words he was holding back.
Gorn Captain after: “They’re soft, weak…its you guys I was worried about. I knew he wouldn’t kill me and would want to ‘spare us’. I just wasn’t sure what would happen if I won.”
It would be funny if the actor came back playing Scotty, with an odd accent that confounded Uhura.
Also going to miss Lu’an. Albeit I suspect that character will be back on board before long.
So the Gorn are now basically a version of the Alien xenomorphs. Star Trek OS did have a lot of episodes that were like standard horror stories, so this fits into that.
Still it was hard to concentrate on what this episode did well because I kept feeling like I was watching a retread of Alien.
I think the biggest complaint I have with the Gorn story from this season is that with this episode, they are no longer the Gorn we thought we knew.
I would have honestly preferred the critters in this episode to have been a different critter altogether. I don’t see how this critter gets to space travel (other than by hitching a ride).
That being said - I rather like the fact that with this season - its truly showing a crew on the edge of the unknown dealing with things - and its not just un-named redshirts dieing to show its dangerous.
I don’t care about that kind of thing, especially with respect to something like the Gorn. The Gorn appeared in one OS episode and we didn’t learn much of substance about them. And what we do know was pretty much a foam rubber Godzilla costume. So far as I’m concerned, they can change whatever they want, so long as it’s good. If the Gorn are vaguely lizard-like but don’t look like an old Saturday morning kids’ show, that’s enough continuity for me.
I did think the scenes after they killed the last Gorn were really well done. The acting on this show is top notch.
But how does this change the cannonicity of Gorn weddings?
I also recall the episode of Enterprise where they faced a Gorn.
In some ways it is very similar. In terms of looks, I can see how this version might be an adult form of what was in Strange New Worlds. And the way it attacked from above using stealth was also consistent. La’an did warn the crew to watch the ceilings, after all.
But it looks a lot less menacing. It struggled with Archer in a wrestling contest, and only managed a minor scratch. Maybe they are more vicious when younger, but it’s odd for a creature to become less dangerous as it matures. Nature doesn’t work that way.
As to Hemmer, I really got a Captain Oates thing. In fact I had to go and look it up that they didn’t use the same quote. It was close, but not exact. “I am just going outside and may be some time.”