July Notes

We've been enjoying Strange New Worlds this summer. They've had a variety of storylines, from the comedic to the horrific, that show off the versatility of their format, writers, and cast. I got over my initial problem with the portrayal of Christine Chapel upon re-watching the Original Series episode The Naked Time. The seeds of that relationship with Spock were unmistakably there in that episode 56 years ago, and today's writers picked that up and ran with it. The re-imagined Gorn are nasty and formidable, definitely a step up from Kirk's opponent. We shall consign that original Gorn to the same basket as the smooth-headed Klingons. As Worf said, "We never speak of them."

The episode The Elysian Kingdom gave the cast room to stretch and try different characters in the way that the Holodeck episodes often did for Next Generation episodes. Anson Mount (Captain Pike) and Christina Chong (La'An Noonien-Singh) get the awards for the performances most unlike their normal characters.

The Elysian Kingdom episode got me thinking about where I had previously seen entities like the one they encountered. One of them was the classic novel The Black Cloud by astronomer Fred Hoyle, written way back in 1957. It was required reading in the course I took at Cornell titled "Science Fiction as Literature" (now that was progressive). Another was Eater, by astronomer Gregory Benford, written decades later. Both involved non-terrestrial entities who happen to visit the earth and are surprised to find life on the surface of the third planet. Both are written by people who know the science well and could turn it into a compelling story. By the way, an astronomer colleague who was friends with Benford said that Benford had hit him up with some "What If" questions about black holes a few years prior and had no clue that they would result in a book until he got it in the mail. That was a cool connection.