Star Trek: Strange New Worlds S04E09 – Once La’An A Time

While this episode is another genre episode, it’s more of a direct sequel to Season One’s eighth episode The Elysian Kingdom rather than yet another clone of an existing film.

In The Elysian Kingdom we saw Doctor M’Benga reading a fantasy novel to his daughter (who he was keeping hidden in the ship’s transporter buffer while he searched for a cure for her illness) and the characters were brought to life by a “Boltzmann Brain” — a theoretical consciousness created out of nothing.

No, we’re not told how it’s created or why it’s created, it’s just created okay? Stop asking awkward questions!

Each of the ship’s crew was turned into one of the book’s characters and completely transformed into them, bad haircuts and attitudes alike.

The ship was restored to normal after M’Benga’s daugher, Rukiya, agrees to join the Boltzmann Brain who she named Debra, as you do.

3 years later, the Enterprise comes across a strange floating Disc World (ahem) that is powering its way across space like some kind of ship, except it’s a planet and it shows signs of life.

Intrigued, La’An, Pike, Spock and Pelia beam down to the surface so see fairy-like creatures and a castle looming in the distance.

While they’re trying to understand the strange surroundings, they are approached by a man wielding a sword who moves to protect La’An only he calls her “Princess Thalia” and looks exactly like Joseph M’Benga, only with longer hair!

They don’t understand what’s going on so contact the Enterprise to speak to the real Joseph who explains about the Boltzmann Brain and the crew’s subsequent transformation into characters from his daughter’s fantasy book. The Brain had wiped all of their memories, leaving only M’Benga’s intact so he could remember what happened to his daughter who had gone off with Debra.

Why didn’t he tell the crew what had happened? After all they were made to act without freedom of choice and some might see that as a violation. We don’t know and the crew doesn’t seem to care. Stop asking awkward questions!

M’Benga explains who each of the crew was: Pike was the cowardly Sir Rauth, Spock an evil wizard called Pollux, La’An was Princess Thalia and Pelia wasn’t on the ship so missed all of the shenanigans.

M’Benga wonders if the planet was created by the Boltzmann Brain for La’An. During their first encounter, Joseph had been struggling looking for a cure for his daughter and he surmised that the Brain created the fantasy to help him and his daughter cope, and he’s now wondering if it’s doing the same for La’An.

During the past few episodes, and the start of this one, we’ve seen that La’An has been struggling with two sides of her personality: a public facing “normal” one, and a darker, more violent one that she’s been trying to keep hidden but it keeps rearing its ugly head.

We saw in The Griffin Incident this violent streak when she attacked Kirk (although admittedly she wasn’t in her right mind), and at the start of the episode it’s alluded to the fact that she went a bit rogue on their previous off-screen mission while unearthing a spy at a wedding.

She’s also got a few issues with Kirk after almost killing him on the aforementioned Griffin, and the brief but intense romance she had with an alternate timeline version of him in the 3rd episode of season 2, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and she has his watch as a reminder which she wears during Orders of Magnitude so it’s obvious he’s still on her mind.

But why La’An and not Pike who’s been going through a bit of a traumatic time himself? Or Ortegas who has hinted that she’s still struggling to come to terms with what happened to her on the Gorn ship in season 3? We don’t know. Stop asking awkward questions!

La’An scoffs at M’Benga’s idea but inside she knows that it’s certainly a possibility, she has been struggling and has admitted than in her personal logs and decides to go along with it — even if she thinks that being a princess is ludicrous.

Following the storybook’s tale isn’t as easy as it would seem as Spock, Pelia and Pike are captured by the Fantasy Sir Rauth and Pollux and sent to The Castle. La’An manages to avoid capture and is “rescued” by Prince Dashing (James Kirk). They must make their way to the castle to rescue Pike and Spock from the evil Queen Nera (Uhuru).

Meanwhile Sir Rauth and Pollux have made their way on to the Iron Dragon (the Enterprise) in order to control it, as the prophecy says that whoever controls the Iron Dragon will control the Elysian Kingdom.

We have some fish out of water comedy moments as Rauth and Pollux try to blend in with the ship’s crew with Rauth getting drunk in the Port Galley. Sir Adya (Ortegas) and Z’ymira (Una) get into a love spat and and up making up with a big smooch. And in order to not get killed by the Evil Queen Neve, Pelia pretends to be Duchess Benny Russell, the author of the fantasy book (who first appeared in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode Far Beyond the Stars) who Neve forces to begin to right a new chapter about how she controls the Iron Dragon, even though Pelia is complaining of writer’s block.

La’An must embody her role as Princess Thalia in order to find the Key of Consequence so they can break into Queen Neve’s dungeon and free herself literally and figuratively.

Will the motley band of misfits be able to stop Rauth and Pollux taking over the Enterprise, free Pike and Spock from Queen Neve’s clutches and save La’An and her fantasy counterpart? You have to read the next chapter to find out!

No Damsel In Distress Here!

As much as I am tired of the genre of the week direction Strange New Worlds season 4 has been taking, this episode was FANTASTIC!

It might be because it wasn’t a direct rip-off of an existing property (although there were shades of The Princess Bride (1987, directed by Rob Reiner) which coincidentally also starred Carol Kane) and the cast were obviously having a ball with the ridiculousness of it all.

As long as you don’t ask questions like “How did the planet get there?”, “Why did it choose La’An to fix?”, “What on Earth is powering it?” and “What did Chef Max do to those scones to make them taste so fantastic?” the episode is a rollicking fun-fest from start to finish.

🚨Warning! Spoilers for Once La’An A Time ahead!🚨

Sir Rauth trying to get Pike’s hairstyle right is a hoot, and Sir Adya and Z’ymira’s sniping at each other was brilliant to see and yeay for some queer representation — finally, I mean it’s only been 4 seasons.

I do have some complaints however.

First was how La’An seemed to be able to resolve her inner turmoil so quickly and seemingly through the use of magic.

We have two La’Ans in this story: one of the light (the Princess) and one of shadow (La’An) and in order to become whole again the two need to fight it and and then combine using some sparkly magic juju making them both “normal”.

It seems like a bit of a get-out-of-jail free card for La’An as she’s now back to her old self (apparently) without the need for prolonged therapy or what ever us normies would need to get over trauma. And I think the magical fix does La’An a bit of a disservice really when it comes to how self-reflective she was becoming as her darker (augment?) side came out more.

Secondly, I like the idea that dragons exist, however I do have to question the fact that if a dragon could fly into space would it seriously be a match for a starship? I don’t think so. Rather farfetched if you ask me and could have been handled a lot better.

Finally, I was also a bit annoyed that they just seemed to dump Pelia at the end of the episode with no goodbye, just an off-handed mention that she’s staying behind to help the planet/ship get to its destination (wherever that is) and she’s also hooked up with Max — he of the wonderful scones — and so I guess that’s her farewell? She was such a great character I just felt they brushed her off to get her out of the way.

So with La’An fixed and her and Spock broken up, it seem as though my prediction of her attempting galaxy-wide domination that I made in episode 2 is now probably moot.

With one episode of the season, what’s going to happen next?

While I’m happy that La’An is seemingly back to her old self, I had kind of been looking forward to a “Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaan” moment when she went full-on augment in the final episode. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see!

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