18th November, 2022.
As I write … ?
A civilised man is sitting in a chair, waiting for vegetables to boil.
Rather than trying to kill me!
Yes: it’s Friday.
And? I’m cooking dinner.
And, once I’ve had that?
I’m going to be watching another episode of the very enjoyable Star Trek Strange New Worlds.
And will have this written review done, late on the 19th November.
I’m looking forward hearing what you think of what I thought.
19th November, 2022.
Episode 9 — All Those Who Wander — opens with the usual summary of earlier episodes: reminding us of how well Cadet Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) and Chief Engineer Hemmer (Bruce Horak) get on, how Nurse Chapel and Lieutenant Spock’s have unresolved issues.
The scene shifts.
To show us Cadet Uhura filling in what’s scheduled to be her last personal log, in her training rotation on the USS Enterprise.
She’s due to head back to Earth: once the Enterprise has made a delivery to Space Station K7.
Before that?
She’s due a final dinner with the Captain: along side Chia (Jessica Danecker), her fellow Cadet, and the newly promoted Lieutenant Duke (Ted Kellogg).
With dinner out of the way … ?
Captain Pike (Anson Mount) mets with his senior officers — Number One, Dr M’Benga, Lieutenant Noonien-Singh and Lieutenant Spock (Rebecca Romijn, Babs Olusanmokun, Christina Chong and Ethan Peck) — to discuss a Priority One mission that Starfleet Command’s contacted them about.
It seems the USS Peregrine has set off its distress signal: after exploring near Valeo Beta V.
Then?
Its signal’s been lost: as the planet’s atmosphere blocks transmissions.
The planet’s atmosphere also prevents beaming a landing party down.
So Captain Pike?
Decides to take M’Benga and Spock — alongside Chia, Duke, Uhura and Lieutenant Sam Kirk (Dan Jeanotte) — to see what they can see.
The Captain wants to take the Cadets out on one last jaunt.
On what should be — barring the communications black-out caused by the planet’s atmosphere — a relatively easy mission.
‘Relatively easy’ … can be such a deceptive term …
~≈🖖≈~
Now …
“What,” O hear you ask “did you make of All Those Who Wander.”
“Was it good, bad, or indifferent?”
“Well made? Badly done?”
“Did it,” I hear you ask, “remind me of something else?”
There’s a distinct possibility it did.
All Those Who Wander’s basic plot is simple enough to explain: even if I’m not very good at explaining things.
The landing party is stuck on a crashed ship on a dark, doomy planet and has to;
- Get a signal to the Enterprise.
- Rescue the remaining Peregrine crew.
- Avoid getting eaten by parasitic monsters!
Which is possibly simplifying it a bit too much.
Truth be told? And this should answer your “remind me of something else,” question.
I watched All Those Who Wander thinking it reminded me of Alien: set on a dark and doomy planet where radio contact is hard and watching various crew members getting picked off by parasitic aliens, that hatch out of living beings.
But … ? Also reminded of many Doctor Who stories.
Ones like Tomb of the Cybermen, The Moonbase, Horror of Fang Rock, and, more recently, Midnight, and The Tsuranga Conundrum.
Ones that Dr Who fans tend to call Base under Siege stories.
Yes: arguably All Those Who Wander has its similarities to Alien, and aspects of Aliens.
The Gorn hatchlings, like the xenomorphs, eat their way out of a intelligent being: and mature rapidly.
The crashed USS Peregrine has been photographed in a way that’s similar to the original alien ship.
La’an Noonien-Singh is this story’s equivalent to Ripley in Aliens.
She, like Ripley, is able to warn and inform her team about danger.
Much like Ripley, in Alien³? Hemmer sacrifices himself at the end of the episode: in order to stop further danger.
Yes: there’s similarities.
But I feel — much as with Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach — that this is no intentional: not completely, at any rate.
All Those Who Wander has differences, after all.
The Starfleet crew investigating this crash site are explorers: rather than marines or oil workers.
Spock — like Ash — is logical, and finds the creatures admirable: but has an emotional side that Ash doesn’t. It’s one of the few episodes where we see Spock’s human side, a human side the android Ash doesn’t have.
We get the sense that the crew of the Peregrine — unlike the colonists in Aliens — went to their deaths willingly: knowing that was a way of preventing further deaths.
So we can say yes, there’s similarities.
But also that these are common ideas.
Hemmer’s self-sacrifice can parallel Aslan’s death in the Narnia chronicles, or the Terminator’s death in Terminator 2: Judgement Day: of Christianity’s central story, if we’re that way inclined.
La’an’s decision to move on, to leave the Enterprise, and try to find the family of the Peregrine’s surviving crew? Could come from any number of things.
And the Base under Siege plot?
Is common enough to have a name.
What we have to ask ourselves, here?
Is All Those Who Wander a good treatment of the basic idea?
Is there good writing? And performing?
The writing? Writer, Davy Perez, has done a job and a half, here: giving a suitably Star Trek twist to an old trope.
Yes: the performances are great.
I have to give credit to both Christina Chong, and Ethan Peck: they put in very watchable work in this episode.
Is All Those Who Wander a good episode?
Is it worth watching? Is it as good as Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach?
Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach is still — just — the better episode.
But, yes, All Those Who Wander is good, watchable … and will have you glued to your seat.
All I can do, right now?
Is tell you I’ll be watching episode ten, A Quality of Mercy, on Friday, 25th November: and have my video and written reviews up on the 26th.
The last in this first series of Star Trek Strange New Worlds better be good.
All Those Who Wander.★★★★
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