What’s it going to take to get Ortegas her own standalone episode? Because every time she – and by extension, actress Melissa Navia – was on screen in “Among the Lotus Eaters,” the episode went from a messy slog to a fun, tight race against time to save the Enterprise from certain doom. But when she wasn’t on screen and the action shifted down to Rigel VII and the Pike-centric side of things? Yeah, that’s when things didn’t really work. You see, the major issue with “Among the Lotus Eaters” was that it was trying to tell two distinct stories – one of Pike coming to the realization that his decision to overthink and protect himself and others can lead to major errors in judgment that negatively impact himself and those around him and one of Ortegas realizing that her braggadocios attitude surrounding her piloting skills (which was, on a deeper level, masking a fear that she might not be good enough) really was fully-earned and that she is absolutely good enough) – it only managed to provide truncated arcs that never felt fully formed enough to provide the character development and the emotional impact the episode was going for.
First, the disappointing. If the entire episode had focused on Pike’s mini-crisis of faith in himself and his relationship with Captain Batel (whom I adore and want to have on the series as much as possible), it would have probably been a middle-of-the-road Strange New Worlds episode. Memory loss episodes are tricky to do, as the audience will always be leagues ahead of the characters who are struggling to grasp who and what they are so long as they are missing their memories. And I fully understand the desire to bring Pike back to Rigel VII and make use of the story from The Original Series, but so much of Pike’s journey here just felt bereft of any real deep impact on him or M’Benga and La’an (both of whom already had key episodes this season that helped flesh out their characters a bit more). The resolution M’Benga and La’an reach at the close of the episode – that some memories are worth the pain of others – didn’t feel like an earned resolution at all. If the entire episode had focused the action on Rigel VII, we could have spent more time delving into the disconnect between the indoor and field Kalar, taken time to tease out why it was troubling that Luq (a great Reed Birney) had covered some elements of his identity tattoos, leaned about how this society formed via the legends. If we had the time to learn about the group of people Pike, M’Benga, and La’an were joining, and got to see how their personalities changed with the loss of their memories*, then this story would have felt far more complete than the version that we received.
*If two characters with deep trauma talk about how having their past pain is worth the good memories they have, we need to see how the lack of that pain and trauma changes them. We needed to see La’an without her past and the baggage of her familial name. We needed to see M’Benga when he isn’t missing his daughter and doesn’t have PTSD from fighting in the war. And we needed to see Pike without the knowledge that he has a horrific destiny waiting for him in the future. Having them work out so quickly that they don’t belong there makes it so the characters don’t get the chance to experience life without their past pain. Without the time spent showing us how changed these characters become losing the darkness within their selves, we can’t appreciate the moral of the story they claim to have learned in the end.
On the flip side, the Ortegas half of the story also felt a bit underwritten, even though it was a much stronger piece of character development. Again, memory loss stories are tricky, but this particular section of the episode worked because it took a laser focus on a single character and let us follow her as she used her innate abilities to ultimately save the day. We’ve learned precious little about Ortegas thus far in the series, which is a real shame. We know she’s close with Nurse Chapel, we know she is a crack pilot, and we know that she’s incredibly outwardly cocky when it comes to talking about her flying abilities – although that brashness does seem to hide some worry that she might not be as good as advertised. But when push came to shove, Ortegas was able to complete her job (even while everyone else on the ship was wandering lost and confused) because her piloting ability is so ingrained in her muscle memory that even the loss of her memory couldn’t truly impact her abilities. She’s damn good at her job. Which is something pretty cool to see. We’ve seen how talented and impressive this crew is, but no one (outside perhaps Uhura, who is a natural polyglot) has the intrinsic skills that Ortegas exhibits in this episode.
Imagine an episode with a similar set-up: Ortegas is excited about getting to go on an away mission, only to be told to stay behind because they need her piloting skills to keep Enterprise in orbit. The away mission turns out to be totally normal in the end, but memory loss plagues the crew on the ship and Ortegas needs to go through the same steps of self-identification and relying on her innate piloting abilities in order to save the ship before it gets destroyed in the debris field. We could have key characters slowly fall by the wayside until it’s clear all have been lost, then the episode follows Ortegas through her journey to heroics. A race against time to warn the away team of what’s happening on board and save the ship all in one fell-swoop. The tension would be higher, the wins would feel far more earned, and we wouldn’t have to work through a split storyline that ends up shortchanging everyone in the end. This wasn’t a bad episode of Strange New Worlds – not by a long shot – but coming hot on the heels of two all-timer episodes, it certainly suffered from a lack of clear narrative focus. You can’t win them all, but man, I do wish the writers had given Ortegas the showcase episode she deserved.
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