nicklesu

Firstly, I'm old and have watched this (and most Trek) many times; I went to my first Star Trek convention back in 1976. This is just to confirm that I know a lot about the Trek universe.

This episode is, overall, good. Lots of tension, introduces the Romulans (and Mark Leonard), and as others have mentioned is basically a submarine show (love those, too). But that's where I have the biggest issue with this episode. At one point both ships "run silent" to hide themselves from their enemy. But that doesn't need to extend to the point of whispering. They could have the loudest rage party going on and it's not going to make a difference. They're IN SPACE! Sound doesn't travel in space.

(And on that point, the producers knew this. Originally there wasn't any sound as the Enterprise zooms past the camera; in tests nobody thought the ship was fast, so they added the "whoosh" to help convey speed to the television audience.)

I know (I can hear you now) that there are many points where Star Trek doesn't line up with science (as it was known in 1966, let alone in 2023), but really, this is just too far on that road to stupidity.

Not Safe for Anyone.

Ok, I'm definitely not the intended audience; I'm seriously assuming that the producers intended this for young Australian teens. But it's not good for anyone - well, maybe six-year-olds. Please note that this was a sequel for Escape from Jupiter - also for the same audience and many of the same actors (I didn't watch it). (Truthfully, I only watched four episodes, three of which were on in the background while writing this.)

So why did I watch it? Sonia Todd. She's generally a good actress. And in this show she's the best of the lot. What's surprising is that David Wenham, best known as Faramir in LOTR, is in this. He wears false teeth to give his character a buck-toothed nerd look and, along with wearing thick glasses at the tip of his nose, the whole affect just doesn't work. Both actors must have agreed to do this just for the paycheck.

The plot is simple: a bunch of pubescent teens and two adults head to Ganymede on a cargo ship. The kids tend not to listen and generally do stupid stuff to move the alleged plot along. Don't ignore that this was written by twelve-year-olds.

It's best to ignore *any* concerns regarding scientific or practical or logical realism. Ignore the CGI as well - it's low-budget made-for-tv SFX. Actuality, just ignore the entire show.