Review: ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Episode 3 Sees Number One Fight on More Than One Front
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds delivered excellent opening episodes, and this third installment continues to carry the standard of excellence I am quickly coming to expect from this show. In Episode Three: Ghosts of Illyria, we get a chance to see Commander Una (Rebecca Romijn) take center stage.
With the Captain and Mr. Spock trapped on the surface of a planet they are exploring, she takes command and delivers a performance so powerful I watched the episode again immediately after. While Una is the driving force of this episode, Dr. M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) is brought into the spotlight for the first time as well with the crew fighting off a deadly virus. This episode will challenge you to reflect inward on what prejudices or stereotypes you consciously or subconsciously cast onto others. It forces you to think about your own governmental systems and the public opinion regarding certain individuals. I won’t give any more of the episode away here, but it’s a special one. If you haven’t read out review of episode 2 yet, check it out here.
Spoilers for episode 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ahead.
The Enterprise has traveled to an abandoned Illyrian colony in an attempt to discover what happened to the colonists who once resided there. Illyrians are a group of people who seek to genetically modify and enhance themselves to better connect with the environments around them. They have many enhanced physical capabilities, yes, but developing environmental protections or immunities to diseases or to better inhabit a planet’s existing environment and better connect with nature is the true objective. The Federation has a ban on genetically altered or enhanced species as a result of the Eugenics Wars. Those familiar with Star Trek lore will know this to be when a group of augments nearly destroyed Earth itself.
In order to discover what happened to the colonists the away team must move quickly. The planet is frequently overcome with intense ion storms fatal to organic matter. As the lethal storm approaches, Captain Pike (Anson Mount) sends Number One and the rest of the away team back while he goes to collect Mr. Spock (Ethan Peck). Spock and the Captain are ultimately trapped on the surface for the duration of the storm, but the away team is able to make it back to the ship in time. I must say the jackets for the away team are absolutely sick. Such a sleek and powerful look, and I want one so badly.
Once back on the ship it doesn’t take long for members of the away team to start showing symptoms of an unusual virus. The virus drains their vitamin D levels to catastrophic lows making them do just about anything to fill themselves with light. Crew members begin raising the light levels in their quarters to extreme levels and even bashing their heads into lights in an effort to be consumed by it. Lt. Ortegas (Melissa Navia) had the funniest line of the episode when she stumbles upon strange behavior from a crewmember. As he begins taking his uniform off and putting his face directly onto the light, she awkwardly says, “Whatever tweaks your freak, pal”.
Ultimately, the situation heightens to such dangerous levels, Una is forced to issue a full ship wide lockdown. It was rather jarring seeing crewmembers confined to quarters or workstations as it feels like only yesterday that we were in the beginning stages of a full lockdown ourselves due to COVID. While the crew is rapidly coming down with this disease, Una is protected. When she first contracted symptoms, her body emanated a red glow and seemingly purged itself of the virus. This was our first hint she was hiding the truth about who she really might be. We get a second look at what she might be hiding when she is able to keep Chief Hemmer (Bruce Horak) from killing himself. She stuns him and then easily tosses him on her shoulder and carries him all the way to sickbay. In this scene we go to a slower-motion view of her not only shouldering Chief Hemmer, but also being able to see the emotional weight of what she has been shouldering for years start to surface.
In sickbay, Dr. M’Benga is overwhelmed. Sickbay is overflowing with crew members and he has nearly reached his limits. They soon discover the only way to slow down the spread is turn off the lights of the ship which forces M’Benga to take a big step and sedate all infected crew members.
In a final display of heroics, Una stops her dear friend La’an (Christina Chong) from breaching the warp core in an attempt to flood the whole ship with light. The virus is so overwhelming that those infected will kill themselves in order to radiate as much light as possible onto themselves. La’an has an incredible layered history with both Una and augments. She is both a dear friend to Una and also a descendant of the most infamous augment of all, Khan Noonien Singh. Her family history has led her to having a thorough hatred of augments, and this prejudice now extends to her dear friend. In a heart-stirring battle, Una stops La’an and saves the ship. Through this near disaster however, an antidote was able to be procured. Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) was able to concoct an antidote using the antibodies from Commander Una, who revealed herself to be an Illyrian,
On the surface of the planet, the Captain and Mr. Spock have been holed up in the library both waiting out the storm and reading about the Illyrian’s who once resided there. It’s discovered they wanted to join the Federation, and in a good faith gesture were attempting to reverse their genetic modifications to be granted entry. As the storm reaches critical levels, several creatures begin exiting the storm coming straight for the remaining away team’s shelter. With high pitched shrieks they begin to lay siege to the library in an attempt to gain access. As the storm threatens to break through into the library to effectively kill Pike and Spock, the shrieking creatures break through and surround them. The creatures save their lives.
With the storm passing, Spock deduced the creatures were the former colonists themselves. He had read about the disease that ravaged their colony and its effects of making one go “mad for light”. He suspects the colonists fell victim to this disease and the ion storm caused a strange phenomenon. It seems, in their attempt to change themselves in order to join the Federation, they took away their super immune systems and their very ability to fight this disease.
This episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds brings about several emotional conclusions. First, the Captain rejects Una’s resignation after she discloses the truth about who she is. Second, we learn the virus made it onboard due to the medical transport system not being updated and refitted. Dr. M’Benga has been keeping his dying daughter in the buffer while he attempts to find a cure. Rather than punish the loving father, Una says they will find an alternative power source to keep her stabilized. We then get to see some story time with the father and daughter. Thirdly, Una, and La’an have a raw and authentic conversation, and seemingly come to a resolution. Lastly, Number One has a powerful closing monologue…
For me, this was the highlight of the episode. The captain has called her exemplary and plans to defend her against whatever punishment Starfleet may render, yet she still feels completely distraught. Wondering what if she hadn’t saved everyone or turned out to be one of “the good ones”, would they all still treat her this way? She closes by asking the question. “When will it be enough to just be an Illyrian?” I wrestled with this for a while after watching it. In many ways it speaks to the plight many immigrants and marginalized peoples face. These underlying biases and stereotypes that destroy and fracture rather than bond and nurture. When will it be simply enough for everyone to come as they are and be fully accepted rather than fit into the box greater society has set for them?
Tyler Bradshaw is a Florida social services coordinator with a passion for movies and filmmaking. While The Empire Strikes Back is his favorite movie all time some other favorites include Seven Samurai, Little Women (2019) and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He has an always growing list of movies he needs to see with David Lynch being his current favorite director. He loves to engage in thought-provoking conversations about his favorite movies.
