Review: Strange New Worlds "The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail"
The latest Star Trek streaming episode has the same old problems
The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail is a decent enough entry in this season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds — which, for the record, I still think is the most enjoyable Trek of the streaming era.
What keeps it from being great are the same problems plaguing all of these new shows.
We’re supposed to believe James T. Kirk, a Starfleet first officer who’s gone through years of rigorous training, freezes at a critical moment that could mean the loss of two starships and the safety of several Federation worlds. Really? That’s Starfleet Academy’s best?
Worse, the doomsday clock apparently pauses while Kirk leaves the bridge to sulk — a massive dereliction of duty — so that Scotty, Spock, Uhura, and Chapel can hold a therapy session to make him “feel seen” enough to finally make a decision. On any real ship, the instant the commanding officer walked off, refusing to act, the next in command — here, Spock — would have taken over. No pep talks. No group hugs.
Imagine this on a real naval vessel:
Captain: “Lieutenant, fire phasers!”
Lieutenant: “I… can’t. Once, when I was a child, my father was demanding, and I’m afraid I’ll make a mistake…”
Captain: “That’s okay, son. We all have trauma.”
Cue everyone patting his shoulder while the ship explodes — reassuring him that he’s a good person, that he just needs to believe in himself because “the power has been inside you this whole time,” and that, most importantly, he is truly seen.
Enough with the “believe in yourself” nonsense. If you still need that kind of affirmation, you wouldn’t be on the bridge in the first place.
Another gripe: Pelia. She’s supposedly thousands of years old, but every anecdote she shares is from 1980–1989 pop culture. She’s lived through most of human history but seems to have tossed everything else in the bin. But really, she’s only there so that the audience can laugh. “Oh, I remember telephones! I relate!”
And one last note — not just for this episode, but the whole series: too many main cast members. Cut it down so we can get focused stories instead of doling out one or two obligatory lines to everyone. Or, at the very least, make them act like trained officers who don’t need constant emotional babysitting.