Although it has largely treated its characters with care in its debut season, Star Trek: Strange New World's general sense of breeziness has also given those characters a light touch. One of the show's most sincere stories has been wrapped up in this week's episode.
For most of the time, Strange New Worlds is a consistent television show. The work of a TV recapper is interesting because it is consistent at being very good. I tell you every week that the show has a new premise and that it's a variation on the Star Trek stories. I tell you every week that this is very charming, and that the show layers this charm over some fun character beats and explorations, that we get to learn a little more about our Starfleet heroes, and then we move on.
There is an extra layer of metatext in this week's recap. The eighth episode of Strange New Worlds is called "The Elysian Kingdom." It is a story where the hero thinks he knows the end of the story. The same thing could be said of me, until I and Dr. M'Benga were surprised at the end.
The Elysian Kingdom is a parody of Star Trek. This week's episode is no different, as Star Trek loves to put its science fiction heroes into fantasy settings so they can get their farce on. After another night of reading to his dying daughter, Rukiya, Dr. M'Benga wakes up in a world where the Enterprise is a foliage-strewn magical kingdom. Even though he is the Chief Medical Officer of a starship, Dr. M'Benga still has to solve the mystery of what happened to the crew.
It's an excuse for the cast of Strange New Worlds to have the most ridiculous fun possible and still get away with it as a cohesive narrative and performance. "The Elysian Kingdom" cleverly lets M'Benga sidestep the tired science/fantasy skeptic approach, his journey through this tale isn't predicated on the fact he's an extremely smart doctor, but the fact he knows the tale of the Elysian Kingdom so well As the only unaffected member of the crew, Bruce Horak and Chief Engineer Hemmer are able to navigate the ship and watch everyone else eat their words.
It's silly. The other bridge crew members are thrust into larger-than-life roles that their actors relish in. Anson Mount shrieked and whined his way through the episode as he was turned into a traitor. The demure, still-unsure-of-herself Uhura fills in as the sinister Queen Nev, the villain of the piece, and also plays the role of Spock, giving us a rare look at Spock's darker impulses. La'an doesn't get much to do, but she owns every moment she's on screen, going so far over the top it's almost too much. Nurse Chapel becomes the mystical healer of the Sick bay, and the Ortegas get to be King Ridley's stalwart warrior guard. It all comes down to the fact that our heroes are forced to blurt out in their fantasy roles, that you just get to relax, and have a good old fashioned cackle at just how bad it is.
There is a surprising amount of heart in "The Elysian Kingdom", even though it is far away from the characters and emotionalities of the Enterprise. As Dr. M'Benga and Hemmer slowly work their way through what the former knows of the book's narrative while investigating the true cause of their strange plight, it becomes clear that Rukiya and her illness are at the heart of the mystery. The actual story beneath "The Elysian Kingdom" is one of a father having to let go of a daughter he loves in order to stop the crew from hurting itself in this fantasy escape. The doctor theorizes that it is Rukiya, rather than his own recollections of the fantasy tale they read together, that is causing the crew's dilemma after M'Benga and Hemmer discover that the nebula the Enterprise was probing is in fact a spontaneously created sentient lifeform. It has been revealed that the entity was able to sense Rukiya in stasis and decided to cure and free her as an act of goodwill.
It would be at this point that the godlike Cosmic entity would use its vast, incomprehensible abilities to correct the situation for everyone involved. It would be fine to. This season is a good time to indulge in a nice breeze. In its final act, "The Elysian Kingdom" gives M'Benga a terrible choice: if he wants his daughter to remain happy and healthy, he will move the enterprise away from the nebula. It's a heartbreaking moment, and Olusamokun steps up to the plate to deliver what is a stellar performance for the entire show so far.
It's an emotion that is earned with the weight it deserves, as Dr. M'Benga is one of the rare stars of the show that has been allowed to explore his options. The decision to let his child go for her own sake is a powerful end to the story. It is an important moment for M'Benga's journey, to be able to see him accept both happiness for his daughter and his limitations as a doctor, and how that lesson will affect whatever Strange New Worlds will do with him next.
After a season that has largely stuck with the comfortable familiarity of its riffs and breeziness, Strange New Worlds is still capable of this kind of heartfulsurprise. Strange New Worlds has proven itself to be a great asset for a show that is comfortable and confident, because it can take itself so seriously to deliver an emotional gut punch while on the other play it can become a camp farce. The series can find the courage and ingenuity to let go of the past a little more often, and find something new and similar to challenge itself with.
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