Submitted 1 year ago by ValueSubtracted@startrek.website to startrek@startrek.website
An accident with an experimental quantum probability field causes everyone on the USS Enterprise to break uncontrollably into song, but the real danger is that the field is expanding and beginning to impact other ships—allies and enemies alike.
Written by Dana Horgan & Bill Wolkoff
Directed by Dermott Downs
Can we talk about how great it is that they keep tinkering with the opening credits for the special episodes? Because I love it every time they do. Fukkin acapella man.
I’m a huge sucker for altered opening credits. Enterprise still wins for the best one of these with its mirror universe episode.
+1 for that theme in In a Mirror Darkly.
I love this as well! And doing fun stuff with the star trek brand intro as well, I hope they continue both of those in the future
Oh yeah, great idea. Kinda like the Simpsons gag or so:
Reminds me of how Community would change up things all the time.
Loved it. I was most surprised that the whole cast all had such beautiful singing voices.
La’an’s song touched me the most because I’m someone who also doesn’t really dare to do the things I’d like to do.
A bit sad that we didn’t get a Klingon opera but the alternative was … well, interesting too. 😄 Also, I kinda hope that Spock solving diplomatic crises with the Klingons by drinking excessive amounts of blood wine will become a running gag.
Addendum: after watching it again I realized that (for the first time?) several male background extras were wearing the dress-type uniform variant that only the women used to wear.
Are we getting the unisex skant back? Hell yeah! I love this show.
Boimler wears a skant a bunch of times in Lower Decks.
I missed the skants? How could I have missed the skants?
Uhura had the best song and the best performance. Celia Rose Gooding is a goddamned treasure, and it’s a treat to see them finally really putting that character to good use on a consistent basis.
Just like all Orions aren’t pirates, not all Klingons like opera. Some of them like…whatever that was that they sang.
SNW continues to break new ground really well. This was a really refreshing episode and very well done. I for one loooved this episode.
Alright, I get that musicals are not everyone’s cup of tea, but as a person who watched multiple dozens of Broadway musicals, I must say that the songs were really on par with actual musicals. The cast can really sing well – I expected many great things from Cecile Rose Gooding and wow she did not disappoint. I was very pleasantly impressed by Christina Chong, Rebecca Romijin, Ethan Peck’s performances as well.
I think the director made sure to highlight those actors that can sing well and put those that can’t sing into secondary positions. Clearly Grammy-Award winning Gooding was at the center of the story, and they cut off Anson Mount’s song, because well, he isn’t the greatest singer. They even fully acknowledged that Babs Olusanmokun can’t sing in universe as well. The ensemble pieces in the teaser and the finale were superb though and was a lot more entertaining than the solo pieces (which I get is probably much easier to rehearse/record and produce).
I loved that the episode intertwined music as a piece of the story, pushed the character arc forward between Spock/Chapel and La’an/Kirk. I am not so much of a sucker for La’an/Kirk but the alternative universe scenes were really a nice touch. The only cringey part was the Klingon rap, but I suppose it was intentionally cringey.
Whether you like this musical episode or not, you gotta admit that SNW really boldly goes where no one has gone before.
The Klingon bit was the best part. Imagining them being forced to sing like that while having no context for that style of music is hilarious.
Poor guys didn’t even get to sing Klingon opera. “Aktuh Maylota!”
Makes the line earlier in the episode about their dishonor even better.
Hehe, yeah, I guess, there’s no honor in that. :)
If someone would have asked me a year ago if I thought Spock/Chapel and La’an/Kirk were gonna be my favorite ships in the Star Trek universe I woulda laughed at them.
Yes, this a starship joke lol
Yeah, they used the songs well to pack huge amounts of character work into one episode for most of the cast. Clever move in a ten episode a year TV landscape.
Are those actually all of the actors singing? I thought they just got separate singers
I think they are real cuz they included Chapel’s song and the amount of autotune they added probably wouldn’t have happened if they hired a professional singer. Still liked the song, it was just very noticeable.
Oh no. Those are the actual actors singing.
Anybody who went to acting school has some background in music and dance. Obviously not their best talent or else they’d be a singer instead of an actor. I often consider that most people on television can sing, they just don’t.
Sweeny Todd is a good example of this. You know almost the entire cast from something else and had no idea they were capable of doing music all this time. But, a classically trained actor has definitely been in a musical before, we just never knew about it. Alan Rickman wasn’t exactly a vocalist, but he could keep up with one.
Thoughts/Observation as I watch:
Where will this stand in the long history of Star Trek gimmick episodes? After all, this is the franchise that gave us “Trials and Tribble-ations”, “Take Me Out To The Holosuite”, “In a Mirror, Darkly”, the OG “Lower Decks”, and most recently… “Those Old Scientists”. Holy shit, that was just two episodes ago and in between we got the darkest Star Trek thing in years!
Uhura having to be the operator sounds like the most stressful thing to do that doesn’t involve imminent danger.
“Even if it’s not fully necessary.” That basically sums up every contrivance to get Kirk on board.
KORBY ALERT
Ah, spatial distortions, the cause and solution to everything.
The facial acting as they enter musical-land is priceless.
Acapella theme song!
“So… that happened.”
“Quantum uncertainty field”. That’s some Hitchiker Guide type stuff.
Ah, they brought back the Gilbert and Sullivan stuff.
I like how they are hanging a lampshade on just how BIZARRE it is that people sing out their biggest secrets and deepest feelings in musicals.
Good save, La’An.
“Surprisingly beautiful baritone”
It could have been worse for the crew. Imagine if Uhura had broadcast opera into it, then they’d ALWAYS be singing.
Shaxs would suggest blowing it up by ejecting the warp core.
Gratuitous zero-gee is gratuitous.
Oh god, singing Klingons.
Yeah, the Klingons would also like the “let’s just blow it up” plan.
Wait were those extras twins?
Apparently the improbability field also affects the lighting of the bar.
Isn’t K’tinga the later type of Klingon ship? Ah, screw it, musical rules.
“I don’t love rules but I think you’re about to break a big one.”
This totally is going into Temporal Investigations Kirk file.
CAROL MARCUS REFERENCE
Oh shit, David Marcus reference!
“I’m the Ex” standing as if X in a math question is a good bit of workplay.
Kind of surprised it took this long to give Celia Rose Gooding a full-on solo.
Grammy-Award winning singer!
A grand finale. How meta!
Boy Band Klingons was not on my bingo card.
Lol, playing the TOS theme as a curtain-closer
“You sang about lying to me.”
“Sorry, Earworm.”
All-and-all, it was a good enough gimmick episode. But it was no “Take Me Out To The Holosuite.” (“DEATH TO THE OPPOSITION!”)
Isn’t K’tinga the later type of Klingon ship?
The three Klingon vessels that got rekt by V’Ger at the beginning of TMP were K’Tinga class ships. That was less than 20 years after this episode was set. However, the K’Tingas did remain in service well into the 24th century, likely for the same in- and out-of-universe reasons that the Excelsior class did.
This episodes will forever be the test of whether someone who likes Trek is a fun person.
10/10.
I don’t know. I generally like the fun episodes and I think I like this one overall, but most of the songs just plain missed for me. I’m not sure how often I’d want to see this episode.
Yeah same, I am only posting here now since it took me a bit to actually finish the episode. I really don’t like musicals much in general so this was a hard watch.
I am not saying it was not well done, for what it was they really out their soul into it which is great. Just not at all for me. And I loved the Lower Decks crossover, so its not about it being silly.
It’s funny to think that the return of Trek in 2016 had Klingons eating captured Federation officers and Starfleet commiting war crimes out the gate in the first episode and now we’re getting an animated comedy series and musical episodes. Trek shouldn’t be afraid to be a bit silly and camp sometimes and I’m glad it’s free to be again.
Looks like the test is already working!
I’ve come to the conclusion that SNW is the entry point series.
Do you like legal dramas? Perfect, here’s a great LGBTQ allegory episode!
Do you like goofy animation like Rick and Morty? Here’s the crossover with Lower Decks!
Do you like gritty serious war stories? We’re still dealing with the trauma of the Klingon War!
Do you like showtunes? Somehow we pulled that off too! (also Chapel’s song is a straight banger)
SNW is the show I’d introduce my friends to in order to get them into Star Trek as a larger thing. I think it’s an easier entry point than any other series.
You can also use the episodes they liked to recommend other Trek shows. Someone that likes the zany episodes would probably like TOS or VOY, for example.
I didn’t think they’d skip the opportunity to give us singing Klingons but the end result was just…wow. chef’s kiss
I absolutely love Pike’s “exasperated” face. It’s possibly a bit overused this season but it cracks me up every single time because it’s how I’d probably react if I were in his shoes and it’s so unlike how the previous Starfleet ship captains would react, even when the situation fully merited it.
Picard had a face like that. I think he mostly used it with diplomats.
Kirk had a face like that too. I’ve seen him use it with Tribbles.
maybe we could get a crossover with Shaw so they can make that look together
It could be bunnies
Bunnies aren’t just cute like everybody supposes!
They’ve got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses!
And what’s with all the carrots?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?
Bunnies!
Bunnies!
It must be bunnies!
Did I hear a bit of the music from Once More With Feeling in engineering near the start?
Or maybe midgets.
Serious props to whoever dropped that reference in. That’s a lovely homage to the OG musical episode.
I will be incredibly disappointed if in season 6 or something they don't bring that back and have it be bunnies.
Not SNW, but I for sure could see Lower Decks finding the fold and accidentally finding the bunny probability. Hopefully we’ll see the Klingon bunnies.
ends being Cardassian voles
Touching on the actual character moments for a bit here: the events of this episode do not reflect well on Chapel.
She’d been hitting on Spock literally since the beginning of the episode, and openly pining after him for most of that time. Four episodes ago, she winds up breaking down in tears explaining to an alien telephone receptionist how much she cares about him. Two episodes she is extremely distraught when Boimler accidentally lets slip that Spock is famous in the future, and her relationship with him almost certainly will not last. And now, she gets into a three month fellowship that she didn’t think she had much of a chance at, doesn’t say a word to Spock until she has no other choice, and then busts out a musical number about how “free” she feels. What the hell.
We already know Chapel has some problems with commitment, but this is a whole 'nother level. Throwing away a relationship she spent most of this show obsessively wishing for, without any apparent consideration for Spock’s feelings or non-breakup solutions to spending a couple months apart, is just wild. I’m sure the finale will touch on this with a little more nuance than a musical number was likely to give, but whatever else is said this is not a good look.
It doesn’t reflect well on her, but it does feel sort of…real, in a way that people can sometimes be shitty in real life. She’s tangled herself up emotionally for a long time with someone who for various reasons just isn’t going to be a good romantic partner for her, and there’s certainly a bit of catharsis in realizing “oh maybe I just can stop trying to make this work and stop feeling bad at how I can’t ever seem to make it work”. Its just that immediately after that moment, if you really care, you still need to go check on the person you’re hurting. I really do hope they get a moment in the next episode to get some actual closure with each other.
On top of feeling real, it feels true to the characters that the show has developed over the past two seasons. It’s not empathetic of her, but this feels exactly like the Christine we’ve been shown.
On top of that, it’s a good lead up into the awkward relationship we got in TOS between the characters. Where Chapel seemed to sadly crush on Spock from afar.
Late to the watch party, but I agree with this.
My reading was that Boimler’s slip-up and the knowledge that she wouldn’t be a significant part of Spock’s life (at least viewed from a historical perspective) was what caused Chapel to pull away from Spock, and end up sabotaging the relationship. But tragically - time-travel shenanigans and all that - who’s to say whether or not that’s the way things were always going to happen?
The opportunity the fellowship provides allows her to envision a positive, worthwhile future for herself, where she is free from the boundaries she’d previously imagined, and can let go of her disappointment that the path she yearned to travel with Spock was one she wasn’t destined for.
I interrupted that song very differently. When Boimler spoke with Chapel, she didn’t just realize that her and Spock wouldn’t be together long term but also realized that Boimler didn’t really know her like he knew Spock.
Spock goes on to do amazing things and every detail of his life is recorded in books that people over a century later will read and, essentially, worship him. Chapel isn’t even a cliff note. In her mind, she must feel like she makes no difference and gets down on herself. When she gets the fellowship, it renews her confidence and let’s her know that there is a whole universe of possibilities in front of her.
That was my interpretation of her feelings in the song but I can see others as reading it differently.
100% this. At first I was really salty that Chapel would just bail on Spock as soon as something more interesting came along, @williams_482@startrek.website, describes my initial thoughts exactly. Then I remember how Boimler accidentally crushed her, even going so far as to say that Spock does some important things in the future that rely on him behaving very Vulcan.
Imagine how she felt, finally getting the guy you’ve been pining over only to find out that the universe really needs you two to not be together. Or at least, not be together in the way you wanted to be. We’ve even seen her struggling with it in the time since Boims spilled the beans. I can totally see why she feels she needs to move on. I don’t agree with her “I’ll leave you to get ahead” attitude, but I can understand it.
It was my impression that she was so shitty to him because of Boimler’s little slip up. She definitely could have been kinder, but she knows she isn’t even a blip in Spock’s life. I think she feels she might as well move onto something where she can make an impact and be remembered, like her career. She is probably bitter, and it came out that way as we are all so uninhibited when we spontaneously break into song.
It does feel very quick, given how long they spent teasing the two of them together. This was one of my problems with s1 as well, starting off character arcs and then wrapping them up way too soon (M’Benga’s daughter, for example).
The main thing that bugged me with M’Benga’s daughter is that they’ve basically just retconned how many people understand the way they can use the transporter buffer that was seemingly novel to the TNG folk when they came across Scotty inside of one during Relics. Geordi was all like “what is going on with this transporter” but this season you have Chapel and M’Benga using it as an active stasis system for triage purposes.
Just kind of seems like it would either be more widespread of a use-case in medical scenarios or have some kind of super major drawback in addition to storage capacity like general degradation. Then it would make sense that Scotty pulled another miracle and kept himself from degrading for 100 years.
If I had a nickel for every time Uhura solved a problem by singing at it, I’d have two nickels. That’s not a lot, but it’s the same number as how many times Chakotay’s been lost in the Delta Quadrant.
This was a fun episode. Some bangers, though I agree with some of the people who think some songs could have been shortened. The unexpected Klingon boy band was an amazing gag that didn’t overstay its welcome.
Anyone else convinced Captain Batel is kinda doomed? Pike got off the relationship trauma fairly easily in this episode.
Anyone else convinced Captain Batel is kinda doomed?
The preview clip from “The Ready Room” suggests she’s about to have a very bad day, but maybe it’s a fakeout.
D:
I suspect she’ll die in this season finale. I just get those vibes.
Personally, I want to see Pike and Una happen. They’re already mom and dad to the rest of the crew (which skews really young).
I mean never say never? If I’m remembering the Cage correctly the Talosians at least thought there would be potential there. Though this is the much younger and possibly a little sexist Pike.
That was so stupid. I love this show.
I hope they make one where they poof into bunnies!!! Maybe a Lower Decks episode?
I found it peculiar how the Klingons were saying there was no honor in the singing—considering how into Opera the can be known to be—up until I heard how they got the most egregious of the autotune.
Ok, a post from someone that really hate musicals and was worried about this episode. So sorry if I will over criticize the episode… I admit the episode was so fun at the beginning and songs were nice, loved La’an and Una parts they were really good. I was thinking the episode was a banger. Unlikely it started to lose my attention around on Chapel’s song (also because the autotune was so evident in her and I found the Chapel Spock relationship the worst part of the series) and the second part was a little hard for me to follow, the music too was less interesting and even if Uhura has a great voice her solo song was too long and def not my cup of tea, I didn’t even understand what was trying to say. It could have worked for me with less songs.
It was interesting I have fun for more than I thought and I laughed so much with Klingons, it was often close to clinginess but it was ok at the end.
It was wacky and I loved It! I laughed my ass of with the Klingon part
Only a minor part of the episode but I enjoyed that the intro was done with mostly vocals instead of the usual. I was absolutely not expecting a different intro after we got one with the Lower Decks crossover.
Loved it.
Some amusing details:
Another amazing episode and a certainly fresh idea for the Klingons with their K-pop, or Kling-pop?
I think they towed a good line on whimsy, emotion and gimmicks and kept it well grounded as character exploration. Let’s force everyone to process their season’s emotional growth in song!
Also I have to say I love how much focus SNW gives to lower ranking officers. Classic trek always ended up focusing on a few senior officers but this is a proper ensemble number.
Only thing I want more now is this with Elle Cordova doing her Star Trek technoblabble songs in it.
Episode was good. Klingon part was funny. Liked how the played the TOS theme after the “grand finale” was finished.
What the heck, this episode must have taken so much effort like 20+ minutes of singing + music (and the writing of the songs as well), and in a good half of those requires choreographed dancing as well, the a capella version of the intro, and a few orchestra versions in the credits
I was grinning almost the entire time for this episode, and it moved the plot along too!
Upfront: I love musicals. I have to say this episode is just so creative and original. I think it is one of my all time favorites across all the series. Strange New Worlds has done such a good job bringing back the light-hearted mess in a franchise that had become so overly dark and serious - and this is the pinnacle of that effort. Season 2 has just been outstanding.
I feel like I’m the only person who was SUPER excited when the musical episode was announced, and… rather underwhelmed by the actual episode. (Except for the a capella theme song. I adored that!) Maybe my expectations were too high, but… I just didn’t think most of the songs were that good. I need to rewatch it a couple times, maybe it’ll grow on me.
That Klingon Boy Band was hilarious. The pause was just perfect.
What a lovely episode.
I saw a fair amount of skepticism across the Fediverse about how musical episodes are always bad and annoying, to which someone would always respond “well, Buffy nailed it.” Apparently the SNW writers feel the same way, because “Subspace Rhapsody” isn’t just a homage to “Once More With Feeling,” it’s a love letter. They may have swapped the demon for a subspace wedgie, but they kept the idea of using music to force the characters to confront their feelings about each other, and they even threw in a bunny callback.
10/10. I hope SNW maintains the tradition of a theatrically silly episode near the end of each season as long as it runs!
Oh man, loved that episode. The grand finale was so good! I loved that part when
___the Klingons sang. That was so unexpected and great. That’s what they meant by “dishonor”.
One thing I love about SNW is the variety of stuff they try.
I love Star Trek, and I love musicals. These are two of my favorite things, and I never thought they should mix. When this was announced, I was very skeptical. I have to say, that they pulled it off, and it was AMAZING! The plot was a bit meh and definitely made to shoehorn in the musical, but the singing really did it for me. “How Would That Feel” (La’an’s solo) and “Keep Us Connected” (Uhura’s solo) were my favorite songs, and I have listened to them so much today. “How Would That Feel” definitely cemented La’an’s place as my favorite character.
Kirk and Uhura are real ones for never telling McCoy that Spock had a phase of being proud to be human until he got dumped by Nurse Chapel. He never would have let him live it down.
No, sorry. Very bad. Only Rose-Gooding could sing, the autotune was obvious and jarring for all the others. The songs weren’t memorable (I confess I really dislike the modern US showtune style, but it can at lest be catchy — this wasn’t), the choreography and even the editing was shoddy. The first episode of Trek, other than Enterprise, that I’ve wanted to switch off.
We all must have done some pretty amazing stuff in our past lives, to deserve this season we are getting.
According to the Ready Room, Bruce Horak played the Klingon captain!
triktrek@startrek.website 1 year ago
Some of the lyrics were really clever and fun:
Spock: “I solved for the Y in my computation … but the variable so devastating: I’m the ex / X”.
At the same time: "When we gain control again, I confess"
UESPA_Sputnik@feddit.de 1 year ago
Thanks. Now I get it. IIRC the subtitles had “solved for the why” and then the X didn’t make any sense. That is indeed clever.
My favourite Spock bit came at the end during the grande finale. Everyone was singing “we know our purpose, to protect the mission – our prime directive”, and Spock just goes “not exactly”. 😄