8.2/10
93%
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79%
In my last review I said I wished that Strange New Worlds would step away from gimmicks and get back to the essence of Star Trek and while this week’s episode, A Case of Chiaroscuro, has a couple of gimmicks it was definitely a Star Trek show at the core of the story — see, I told you I wasn’t always a Strange New Worlds hater!
What’s A Case of Chiaroscuro About?
A Federation probe has suffered a power failure, drifted out of position and is now entering the Mat’Aaran system. Ordinarily this wouldn’t have been a problem but Mat’Aaran is in the Klingon demarcation zone and if the Enterprise were to be found in the system it could trigger an all-out war.
Newly minted Commander Una Chin-Riley is tasked with taking a shuttle, along with Doctor M’Benga and Ensign Uhuru to help retrieve the probe but as they are finishing up a Klingon D7 appears forcing the shuttle to hide in the atmosphere of the nearby Mat’Aar XII.
The interesting thing about the Mat’Aaran system is that the sun puts out infrared blackbody spectra which affects how the eyes perceive colour and so everyone can only see in black and white.
As they are moving through the atmosphere, the shuttle passes through a detection field and with no other option they’re forced to land on the surface and abandon the shuttle until the D7 moves out of range. They don local attire, reminiscent of the fashion on 1940s Earth, and head into the city where they hope to lay low before making their escape.
Any thoughts of blending in with the crowd are dashed though when someone recognises Riley as being the leader of a pro-Klingon group. They head to a local club where an anti-Klingon resistance fighter is being held.
It turns out that Nevette, who Una bears a striking resemblance to, is also the leader of the resistance and she needs to convince the Mat’Aarans and the Klingons that she is Nevette in order to stop her crew mates from being captured.
Uhuru makes the mistake of showing compassion when a Mat’Aaran is killed by Klingons and is viciously questioned by Commander Kor (yes, that Kor) where she’s able to overhear that the Klingons will be strengthening their hold on the system meaning that the resistance plans need to be pushed forward.
M’Benga is worried that Una is getting too involved in the planet’s affairs but as he knows all-too-well the horrors that the population face at the hands of the Klingons he’s willing to help the Commander fulfil her lookalike’s resistance commitments.
Can Una, M’Benga and Uhuru convince the people of Mat’Aar XII that they should rise up against the occupying Klingon forces, or will the Klingons find them out and start a new war with the Federation?
When Gimmicks Work, They Work
This season of Strange New Worlds so far has been an exercise in taking other genres and putting a Star Trek spin on them and A Case of Chiaroscuro is no different. The difference is though that Chiaroscuro actually works as an episode of Star Trek whereas with the previous episodes it was almost like the Star Trek aspect was an afterthought.
The black-and-white aesthetics of the episode work wonderfully with the plot and the look of the episode is explained thanks to the star’s radiation output, and it’s explained quickly. No detailed look at why the star is doing what it’s doing, or how it’s doing it, it’s one simple, almost throwaway, line from M’Benga and that’s it.
How refreshing!
In previous episodes, the writers have repeatedly hit us over the head with exposition and explanation like we’re idiots that can’t understand what is happening but here Skylar Ojeda and Dana Horgan just drop the explanation in and move swiftly along.
That being said…
They Still Don’t Trust Us To Just “Get It”
The episode title, A Case of Chiaroscuro, is a little on the nose though so they’re not treating us as an audience that doesn’t need a little hand-holding.
Chiaro, Italian for light, and scuro, Italian for dark, is a lightning technique where artists use lighting itself to define space, volume and heighten emotional tension.
In the episode, chiaroscuro obviously applies to to the way that its shot in black-and-white with the director, Meera Menon, using light and dark to great effect. But what chiaroscuro could also be applied to is the duality in a person. With Nevette it’s the balance of light and dark in her work both supporting and opposing the Klingon occupation.
With Una Chin-Riley, chiaroscuro is the light and dark in her Federation and augment self, both at odds with each other through law, how they perceive the world and how they want to mould it to fit their ideal image of how it should be run.
So once again, the writers are telling us what we need to know through the title rather than just showing us with the content, and with an episode like this it was so easy just to let it speak for itself rather than bonking us over the head with the meaning being so upfront and centre.
La’an And Short Of It
Red Alert! Spoilers ahead for the episode, you have been warned!
There is a sub-plot in the episode that revolves around La’an investigating data missing from a chip on the retrieved probe.
The whole thing is a nothing burger and is just in place to remind us that La’an is getting paranoid since she was genetically turned into a Vulcan, that was really a Romulan, and her dormant augment DNA might be stirring.
There was some tension between La’an and Spock (again) as Spock didn’t believe any data was missing. It wasn’t made clear whether he truly believed no data was missing or if he was covering for Nurse Chapel who had removed the data and that whole argument was just dropped and became pointless.
Again, the writers are battering us over the head with La’an’s anxiety over her augment DNA and it could be handled in such a better, and more subtle, way which would serve the character’s development much more and allow the wonderful Christina Chong to shine.
Another Rip Off Or Another Homage?
The episode is heavily inspired by the 1942 film Casablanca (Directed by Michael Curtiz). Well, I say “inspired” but it’s basically the same plot — a reluctant hero, a resistance movement and an invading force. Even the look of the show is Casablanca-coded with gold armbands (I assume they’re gold, it’s a bit difficult to tell in black-and-white) with a Klingon trefoil replicating the red and white Nazi bands worn by Casablanca’s Nazi collaborators.
With the episode so closely resembling Casablanca, the question then becomes: Is it a love letter to the classic film or have the writers simply run out of ideas?
If you were to take this episode in isolation I would say that it’s a definite love letter, but it’s not in isolation. Episode 1 was Jurassic Park, episode 2 was Event Horizon and episode 3 was Dude, Where’s My Car/The Hangover.
I’m beginning to notice a pattern here.
Now, I get that we need to bring in new people into the franchise and one way to do that is through excellent episodes and storytelling, and another is to take a popular genre and adapt it. And once is fine, twice is a bit lazy, but all four of the episodes? And then we have a puppet, soap opera and fantasy episode to come meaning that we’re looking at 3 “original” episodes of Star Trek in the season.
So no, this wasn’t a love letter as well as it was written, shot, directed or acted.
It was just lazy plot creation which just happened to be a decent episode of Star Trek.
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