Review: Tears Will Fall in the Bittersweet Tragedy of ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Episode 8

Babs Olusanmokun as M’Benga in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

For those who love wonky offbeat Star Trek that somehow works its way into being an absolute heart churner then episode 8 of Strange New Worlds will be perfect for you.

 

Titled The Elysian Kingdom, we see Dr. M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) take center stage. We know he has been desperately seeking out a cure for his rapidly ailing daughter throughout the season.  This narrative arrives at a satisfying yet intensely emotional conclusion by the episode’s end. An “all-powerful” being residing from within a nebula the Enterprise is studying uses its powers to turn the ship and its crew into a real-life adaptation of the children’s book M’Benga has been reading to his daughter. All the crew but M’Benga and Hemmer (Bruce Horak) are under this sort of trance. Hemmer’s telepathic capabilities have seemingly allowed him to defend himself from the entity that has taken over the ship. Together, they combat the forces of magic and mystery that exist within the now live pages of the Elysian Kingdom.  

 

Strange New Worlds Episode 8

Melissa Navia as Ortegas, Babs Olusanmokun as M’Benga, and Anson Mount as Pike

 

The entity from the nebula forces the crew into becoming characters from the Elysian Kingdom. M’Benga is the venerable King Ridley, dressed in his royal garb.  Captain Pike (Anson Mount) is a cowardly chamberlain with outrageously hilarious hair. Lt. Ortegas (Melissa Navia) is the kingdom’s greatest swordsman just looking for someone to cause trouble so she can knock their block off.  La’an (Christian Chong) donned a bright and sparkly dress while carrying around a dog wearing a matching outfit. Spock (Ethan Peck) looked like Star Trek’s evil version of Radagast from Lord of the Rings, Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) engaged with her dark side, Una (Rebecca Romijn) was a risk-taking huntress, and Hemmer (who still had his wits about him) was Spock’s wizard brother. Oh! And let’s not forget Chapel (Jess Bush) was a garden witch of some kind? Maybe? This episode was weird even by Star Trek standards, but in the best way possible. It reminded me of a few Voyager episodes where the crew is unknowingly stuck in the holodeck or even a Next Generation episode with one of Barkley’s enterprise crew holodeck fantasies. 

 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Ethan Peck as Spock in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

 

Seeing the cast embody some entirely different personalities was marvelous. Pike’s hair being so bad must be the funniest decision of the season so far. His back and forth with the ever-serious knight in shining armor Ortegas was entirely delightful. Uhura and La’an’s costumes were breathtaking. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if any of the costumes used in this episode are convention favorites, but these two seem to be more iconic.  

 

 

Part of the joy of this episode is the characters don’t always behave as M’Benga knows them from the book. It was first assumed the entity was drawing this fantasy from M’Benga’s mind, but after he witnesses Una and Ortegas’s characters interact and clearly have affection for one another he realizes this is someone else’s fantasy. His daughter Rukiya always hated how the story ended and that these two characters never teamed up. M’Benga and Hemmer immediately set off to find Rukiya somewhere on the ship. It was special to see a childlike Rukiya dream up her own stories and pair two characters together simply because she wanted to. Melissa Navia had a wonderful tweet where she states how purely Star Trek this is. 

 

 

M’Benga knows just where to find his daughter. She has been trapped in the pattern buffer and sickbay for so long, she yearned to simply see her father’s quarters. Once arriving, we see the young child garbed in a beautiful dress fit for a princess, and the cuteness rating was off the charts. Miraculously, M’Benga discovers his daughter is in perfect health. While she is in the presence of the entity, or “Debra” as she will later be referred to, the terminal illness plaguing her is eradicated. After communicating with the entity, he learns the only way for her to survive is to allow her to stay permanently. My heart was stirring, tears were forming, and I held onto the blanket I was using a little tighter as I watched a father say goodbye to his most precious daughter.

 

Almost immediately after she departs, we see a figure appear back in the room. It’s Rukiya, but a much older version. Time moves differently in the nebula. Moments for M’Benga were years for her. She has gone on countless adventures since adapting to her new form of consciousness and is truly happy. After his daughter departs for the final time, the Enterprise and its crew are returned to normal with no one but the doctor having memory of the event. To the crew, they were just unconscious for five hours.

 

With each passing episode of Strange New Worlds, they truly do find new ways to boldly go where no one has gone before. It’s a show capable of being whatever it wants to be any given week. This week felt like a tragedy filled with the bittersweet taste of loving sacrifice. We saw the dreams of a child brought to life in a whimsical display of pure imagination. With two episodes left to go in the first season, I would imagine the stakes are raised significantly. However, it’s difficult to see any episode matching the emotional strings pulled in The Elysian Kingdom