Star Trek Strange New Worlds — Episode 4 — Memento Mori — A Review

14th October, 2022.

Right at the moment?

The news is on in the background: and Liz Truss — calling her Prime Minister seems wrong, given how she’s doing — is droning on in a repeat of the shortest PM’s Press Conference I’ve ever seen.

That repeat?   Will soon be over.

That means I can have something else on.

I’m looking forward to that.

After catching Hellraiser, last week?

I’m going to be watching another episode of Star Trek Strange New Worlds, tonight.

Memento Mori, the fourth episode.

I’ll have my written and video reviews up, tomorrow night: I’ll see you then.

~≈🖖≈~

15th October, 2022.

Episode 4 — Memento Mori — opens with a summary of earlier episodes.

Then shifts … to show us Security Officer La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong), recording a log entry.

The USS Enterprise is on its way to Finibus 3: specifically, to deliver an atmospheric processor.

Whilst the ship is on its trip?   Its crew are marking Starfleet Remembrance Day: by wearing a badge honouring the los crew on other ships they served on.

Something Lieutenant Noonien-Singh feels ambiguous about: she’s spent years trying to forget about the SS Puget Sound.

~≈🖖≈~

Meanwhile?

Cadet Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) has been rotated to Engineering: and currently being grilled by Chief Engineer Hemmer (Bruce Horak) about the AP 350, the processor that’s being delivered to Finibus 3.

It’s uses charged positron rods to stabilise an ion matrix, and … ahem … filter the air.

A piece of knowledge that impresses Hemmer: when Uhura reveals she knows it.

But, as the famously grumpy Chief engineer warns her?   She’s going to have to do more than theorise, if she wants to really impress him!

~≈🖖≈~

Up on the bridge?

La’an reports in: just as Helmsman Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia) announces the ship is in orbit … over a federation colony planet.

One that — to Captain Pike (Anson Mount) — seems strangely deserted.   And — as Spock (Ethan Peck) points out — has a destroyed communications satellite.

The captain’s best option?

Is to send down a landing party to see what’s happening to the seemingly abandoned colony.

As Number One (Rebecca Romijn), La’an and the team soon discover, the colonists haven’t abandoned their home.

The colonists have been massacred.

Massacred, dragged to a convenient spot, and their bodies moved somewhere.

~≈🖖≈~

Back on the Enterprise?

An unknown ship approaches: a ship that has Captain Pike ordering raised shields and a yellow alert … until the ship makes contact.

Seemingly?

The remaining colonists are on the thing, and can’t be transported off: as the ship has a reinforced hull.

The only helpful thing the colonist’s leader can tell the La’an and Number One?

Is that the planet was hit by a rain of fire.

Something La’an feels she’s seen before.

Back when she was a youngster on the Puget Sound.

~≈🖖≈~

First things first?   I’m going to apologise to regular readers: who were expecting me to watch — and review — this episode, last week.

I didn’t: I watched the Hulu version of Hellraiser, instead.

The remake was something I’ve been wanting to watch since I got wind of it.

You have my apologies … but, my lord, it was worth the time!

But?   What did I make of Memento Mori?

Good, bad, indifferent?

Was I reminded of anything?

For starters, reminded … reminded … ?

Yes: reminded.

Something Star Wars does very well — right from the first film — is space battles.

Literally, from that first film: exciting space battles that were science fiction recreations of the aerial dogfights in films like The Dambusters and 633 Squadron: and imperial cruisers that — much like the Battlestars in Battlestar Galactica — were science fictional versions of battleships and aircraft carriers.

Something I think 1990s versions of Star Trek seemed to pick up on.

I’ve distinct memories of dogfights in later seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

But?

I’ve also got distinct memories of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan: the battle scenes in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan weren’t dogfights.

No: if anything they were submarine battles.   Appropriate, as director, Nicolas Meyer, described the film as ‘Hornblower in space.’

My point?

Was simply that a good bulk of Memento Mori was that same sort of tense, dramatic, space battle as submarine warfare.

Tense, dramatic, and very exciting submarine warfare.

As exciting in Memento Mori as it was in Wrath of Khan: something that kept me watching.

So we have a Wrath of Khan style naval battle: but that’s just one part of Memento Mori.

Another part?

Is something of a murder mystery: what killed the colonists.

That?   Is answered by telling us La’an’s story.

La’an’s former ship, the SS Puget Sound, was hijacked by Gorn, taken to a Gorn nursery worlds.

And the surviving crew were used as food.

La’an … ?   Was the only one to escape.

It’s vaguely film noir, rather than a Miss Marple.

So we have that thread … 

And a third: seeing how Uhura has to help an injured Hemmer repair the processor, a processor that’s on the point of exploding … 

A processor that Hemmer can’t fix … as he’s broken his hand.

~≈🖖≈~

That’s not the things that had me … well, ‘reminiscing’ is possibly the wrong word, here.

‘Comparing,’ is possibly the word.

The plot line with  Hemmer and Uhura had me thinking of Minefield: an old episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, where Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) is stuck on the hull of the Enterprise, with an injured Malcolm Reed (Dominic Keating), trying to disarm a Romulan mine.

La’an, herself?   La’an, herself, puts me in mind of Reed: a posh, English, security officer — or Armoury officer, in Reed’s case — who’s got a stiff upper lift the size of Chelmsford, and a mildly gung-ho attitude buried under the lip: and occasionally, deeply suspicious.

There’s possibly a side issue, there*.

And then there’s Melissa Navia as Lieutenant Ortegas: who’s dryly funny one liners put me in mind of both Commander Jet Reno and Ensign Chekov.   Where can you go wrong with a mix like that … ?

I’m also thinking that — at the other end of the emotional scale — this episode hinted at a new threat: a revamped Gorn.

A species only seen once in the original series: and rarely, since then.

Given season two of Star Trek Picard seems to be turning the Borg into allies?

Is Strange New Worlds trying to rework the Gorn into a potential replacement?

I don’t know: it’s something I’ll only find out, once I watch the rest of this series.

~≈🖖≈~

Now … I’m probably making Memento Mori sound like an unbelievable hodge-podge of elements: baked badly, and with unpleasant lumps.

But it’s not: it’s really not.

There is a mix of surprising elements worked into a very effective mystery-of-the-week.

Very effective, very well made … and, as with the earlier episodes?

Incredibly watchable.

With this episode, and with Hellrasier, out of the way?

Frankly, I’m going to be watching episode five — Spock Amok — next Friday.

And thoroughly looking forward to it.

Memento Mori.

★★★☆

*        To the best of my knowledge?   The makers of Star Trek have hired six English actors since making Star Trek: The Next Generation.   Four of them — Patrick Stewart, Alexander Siddig, Dominic Keating, and Christina Chong — all sound incredibly posh.   Stewart, though?   Is a Yorkshireman.   And would possibly scare his US audience to billy-oh, using his birth dialect.   David (Book) Ajala and Marina (Counsellor Troi) Sirtis are both from Hackney.   I know they’re all using Received Pronunciation, the most widely understood version of British English: given they work internationally.   But Lord … I’d love to see an episode of Star Trek done like Snatch!