(courtesy IMP Awards)
Strange New Worlds (S1, E3)
As narrative hooks upon which to hang a compelling story, it’s hard to ho past time travel.
All that timey-wimey stuff as David Tennant’s Doctor Who used to cutely remark is so far beyond anything we encounter in the spectacularly ordinariness of the everyday that we are immediately smitten and must watch to see where it all goes.
We know you can’t interact with anything or THINGS WILL CHANGE and we get that getting home is not guaranteed making all the running around in a time not your own as loaded and scary as it gets, and yes, exciting (when you’re not worrying about getting stuck there) and so, of course, Strange New Worlds, like many other Star Trek shows before it, decided to dip its galactic toe in the time travel well.
And as you’d expect from a show that is universally clever and seamlessly good at what it does, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” is as brilliant an episode as any we’ve seen before with security chief La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) catapulted back to 21st century Toronto moments after a mysterious man in a grey suit hands her a small handheld device, mutters about things going south a few centuries back and then disappears just as La’an’s timeline goes the way of the Dodo.
It’s a classic case of people in over their heads as La’an and James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley), captain of the Enterprise in the new timeline, but slowly getting getting to the surface and saving a timeline against all odds, and it’s absolutely blisteringly good to watch; but what really makes it arrestingly immersive to sit through is how much emotion is packed into its hour runtime.
A huge amount, in fact, and much of it is down to the fact that La’an, who has found a family with Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) and the wider crew of the Enterprise discovers her numerous barriers to intimacy with someone coming down with Kirk.
It’s a beautiful thing to watch, and it’s all done against the backdrop of a whip-crackingly intense storyline with lots of line; even so, what really stands out here is the innate humanity of the story.
Yes, the time travel aspect is fascinating and the titbits of evidence are fun, as is finding a way to bring new crewmember Pelia (Carol Kane) onboard into the fray, but you really warm to how much La’an finds a friend and a home with alternate timeline Kirk knowing that, should we succeed in restoring her timeline, that he won’t be there anymore while she is fated to remember everything and be forbidden from telling anyone anything.
It’s so happy and sad all at once and Chong knocks it out of the park especially in that final scene when the isolation of her experience, after so much shared intimacy and purpose, comes crashing down upon her.
It’s heartbreaking to take in and if your heart isn’t breaking at that point then you have to question who removed it and put that big lump of concrete there.
Star Trek at its best has always been a perfect marriage between epic storylines and gut punch emotion and “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” delivers on that and then some, serving up another stellar, deeply affecting episode in a season that’s shaping up to be even better than the first.
Next up is episode #4 “The Palace” with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streaming on Paramount+
Silo (S1, E10 finale)
(courtesy IMP Awards)
Wow and wow people! WOW.
We all knew some big reveal was coming and that even if Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) did end up on cleaning crew that she would manage to find a way to subvert the system of banishment even as she’s subverted so much about the dystopianly autocratic world of the Silo.
In an action-packed episode where a lot of people had to make big, life-changing decisions very fast, Juliette outpaces Bernard (Tim Robbins) and Simms (Common) time and again, broadcasting the contents of the hard drive to the whole silo until the powers-that-be shut it down, and it looks for a time like she might actually make a change on her own terms.
But the draconian self-interested system that powers and sustains the Silo leadership is a robust thing, even if it is on its last legs (and just doesn’t know it yet) and eventually Juliette is captured again and sent “Outside” where she discovers some HUGE indeed.
If you’ve read Hugh Howey’s books, the revelation itself isn’t massive but my lord, how it’s done certainly is!
Having made it up the steps, and thanks to Martha (Harriet Walker) realised that what she was seeing on her feed was ———- SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- fake, but not the fake we thought it was (see? CLEVER!) Juliette refuses to clean in trademark “f**k you” fashion and the crests over the top of the hill to find a wrecked city, likely Atlanta, in the distance, and evidence that there are seemingly endless numbers of silos stretching off into the distance.
Again, book readers will know that was coming but that does not take away for a second from the fact that this was a revelation done spectacularly well, thrillingly well.
In tandem with this, it was exciting to watch as Juliette told Bernard about the big door down the very bottom of the silo; if you were watching closely, you would have noticed that Bernard gave a flicker of surprise at that nugget of information.
Juliette assumed he knew but he clearly didn’t and so while the hard drive got theatrically hammered into oblivion, Bernard saved the hard drive, obviously wanting to find out what the hell Juliette knew that he, supposedly omniscient tech guy and silo dictator did not.
There was also high emotion when, as part of her deal to go outside quietly, Juliette was shown how George died; in essence, he committed suicide rather than succumb to torture and admissions of what he knew under painful duress, and you could see that though she was glad to have seen the truth, that her heart was being wrenched from her in bruised and bloody fashion.
It was in the grand scheme of an epic episode, a small moment but it underscored how personal this was for Juliette and why even though the silo leadership think they have things under control, that it’s only going to take a whole lot Juliettes driven by personal missions to bring the whole thing undone.
Yes, the earth is a wasteland, in truth but does that mean there’s no hope outside the silo?
You have to guess there is because otherwise what is the point but even so, the tyranny at the heart of the Silo must be challenged even if there is no endgame in mind because at the moment all everyone there is doing is surviving and not much beyond that.
That’s no life and Juliette and others know that so maybe there’s nothing to be lost by literally busting things wide open and seeing what’s out there.
Quite what does lie next is in the realm of a commissioned second season which is probably about a year off giving everyone plenty of time to read and re-read the books and see what lies in store for everyone trapped in silos of salvation that have somehow become worse than the hellhole world outside.
Silo is streaming on Apple TV+