urthpainter

The title of this episode is apt - because it makes no sense. Not metaphorically, not thematically... not even literally. What is a sehlat supposed to mean here? The title feels clever in a "placeholder draft" sort of way, like the kind of line you write before coming up with the real title. That's the vibe of the entire script: first-draft energy.

And unfortunately, the story itself is just as half-baked. What we get is yet another episode centered around a big battle with a big super-ship, with legacy-character drama awkwardly stapled on to give it weight. Still sitting at 2 for strange new worlds explored this season.

The ending is especially maddening. Everything hinges on one piece of foreshadowing that doesn't logically hold up - something even Pike himself lampshades after the fact. When your own captain is essentially pointing out your script hole, you know the writing room cut corners.

To be fair: the special effects are gorgeous, the cast delivers strong performances, and the production values are on par with the best Trek has ever looked. I want to give the writers credit for riffing on classic Trek setups - two Federation ships caught against a superior enemy, shades of Yesterday's Enterprise and plenty of Voyager battle arcs. But here's the problem: those earlier episodes were clever. They had sharp dialogue, moral weight, character stakes. Sometimes people didn't make it out alive, and that mattered.

This one? It feels like someone pitched a good idea on Monday, shot the draft on Friday, and shipped it off to Paramount without asking if the script actually made sense. All the raw ingredients for a classic Trek story are here - but the cooking was rushed, the flavors underdeveloped, and we're left with fast food where there should have been a feast.

As pure spectacle, fine, I'll give it a 6/10. As Star Trek? It could of been a contender.

With the fifth episode of Season 3, we get our second truly "strange new world" of the season. Yay! And there was much rejoicing.

Through the Lens of Time is my second favorite episode so far, just behind the premiere. It builds on an intriguing premise and, thanks to some clever visual effects, gives us a setting that's both satisfying and puzzling for an away team to investigate.

That's where this episode shines: it leans into the classic Star Trek formula; an away team encountering a mysterious environment, and it does this very well! Even the long-standing TOS "red shirt" trope gets a fresh twist here, and I'm fully on board with it.

Where the episode falters is in the details. The meta, film-within-the-story elements don't land for me; it feels forced rather than clever, and I'm not sure why the writers keep returning to this device throughout the series. Likewise, the time-warp material never gels, coming across more as contrived coincidence than inventive storytelling. Too often, characters are shuffled into place simply because the plot demands it. That kind of backward construction can work if it's either brilliant or if the dialogue is so engaging that science is an afterthought. Here it's neither, leaving the episode as a whole feeling above average, but not as epic as is should.

Five episodes into the third season, I still feel like Strange New Worlds is working with first season level scripts. Fortunately, the talented cast and their on-screen chemistry, combined with consistently strong production values and effects, keep the show afloat. At this stage, though, what the series really needs is a leap in top-tier writing. That's both encouraging, because the potential is there, and a little disappointing, given how far along we are in the show's run.

No "strange new world" here - unless you count the strange decision to waste an hour on what feels like filler masquerading as meta-cleverness. If this had been season 6, episode 19, maybe you could excuse it as a tired swing late in the run. But in season 2, episode 4, it's a damning statement: the writers are already out of gas.

The series still hasn't found its stride, wobbling between anthology-style one-offs and serial threads, but instead of blending, the tones are colliding. What we get this time is contrived, heavy-handed writing that mistakes surface-level "theater kids in space" for something profound. It isn't. It's hollow, painfully obvious, and frankly insulting to an audience that expects more from Star Trek than a cosplay skit stretched past the breaking point.

The intro reeks of padding. The plot itself is a thin, shallow imitation of TNG's "Ship in a Bottle" - except this version is worse in every way: less wit, less imagination, less execution. The actors do what they can, but when the script is this flat, their performances collapse into mediocrity. Compare it to season 3 episode 2, Wedding Bell Blues, which was equally pedantic yet elevated by strong acting. Here, nobody could rise above the dreck.

The only redeeming beat? A thirty-second ship maneuver in the final act. That's it. Out of nearly an hour of television, the one memorable moment is a CGI flourish. That should say everything.

What troubles me is the downward trend after watching this episode. I hope the season can reverse course before it loses its spark entirely.