Sigh. Every time I start to get my hopes up that Strange New Worlds is going to seriously approach a character’s deep internal trauma this season, I end up disappointed. And this exploration of the light and dark sides of La’an was easily the most disappointed I’ve been with the series in a good while – and that’s taking into account the various frustrating episodes all throughout this season that opted for comedy over pretty much any other storytelling beat. I’m starting to feel a bit like a broken record, but once again we have an episode that had a good premise – La’an is keeping her emotions bottled up, leading to her being short, tense, and downright gruff with everyone around her* because she doesn’t want to look into the possibility that her augmented DNA could be reasserting itself and what that might mean for who she is as a person – that is absolutely fumbled with a truly atrocious episode surrounding it.
*Never mind that we’ve had zero indication that she’s been acting like this until the opening of this episode. She’s seemed pretty on balance thus far – last week she was willing to potentially follow orders that would have destroyed a planet along with the rest of her crew, so no signs at all that this personality change was underfoot.
Back when La’an’s fears were only hypothetical – you know, back when Una was on trial and the series was giving us complex, layered episodes that asked characters to face serious roadblocks on their path to happiness – we got a good understanding of just what La’an was struggling with. She’s lost her entire family, grew up essentially an orphan (with Una the closet person she had to family after her rescue from the Gorn), and she has the knowledge that her dormant DNA came from one of the most horrific people to exist in the history of the galaxy. That’s a lot to have churning around in your mind constantly. So, when the show revealed this season that her DNA appeared to be asserting itself, I was hoping for an episode where La’an was forced to grapple with that change. To explore what it meant – and how it does and doesn’t change who she is. Instead, we got a return to the fantasy land of M’Benga’s daughter’s book and another silly, light episode where the revelation of La’an at the end felt more like it belonged in a teen dramedy than in a Star Trek episode.
That’s not to say there weren’t fun moments. As with all of the misfires this season, it was clear the cast was having a blast. Celia Rose Gooding, in particular, was hamming it up to high heaven. And hey, we finally got a queer storyline, even if it was only in a land of make believe, so that’s something (I had a feeling back in the first episode that there was something going on between Una and Ortegas’ counterparts in the fantasy land). But the idea that La’an only needed to embrace her light side? What does that have to do with her existential crisis over whether or not her DNA has the potential to make her into a monster? And yes, I know that the potion combining the two halves of herself did turn the Queen into a monster, representing La’an own fears in that regard, but is her not letting herself be happy actually the issue here? Isn’t it a fear of the unknown – the idea that there’s something lurking within her that could emerge without warning? And turn her into that monster? That’s the fear we’ve been shown multiple times this season and again in the “Previously On” section, and that’s not at all what we ended up having La’an confront.
Instead, she gets a dog (once again played by Christina Chong’s actual dog, Runa) and gets the courage to go on a date with Kirk*. Never once addressing the emotional turmoil of her genetic code and instead opting to reconnect with the very few trinkets she still has from her family. It just doesn’t make sense with the arc that had been set up. At no point does she acknowledge that she can’t simply live her life in fear of what might happen. Instead, she needs to accept the changes that have happened – something she doesn’t seem to actually do – and move forward, aware that she can’t control the future by remaining afraid of the present. Going on a date with Kirk doesn’t address any of that. Telling him the story of her necklace doesn’t address any of that. The stupid message from the Princess that she accepted her werewolf Prince just the way he was doesn’t track with her asking Kirk on a date – again, there’s nothing about Kirk that indicates he’d be cool if she went full Khan at any point in the future. It’s the right message – accept yourself for who and what you are – but it also doesn’t address any of her actual fears at any point and instead is a bland platitude. She’s still dealing with the lingering threat of her emerging DNA and doesn’t appear to have taken any steps to accept herself.
*Good god, can’t we let La’an stay single for a minute? At this point, I’m expecting her to have to leave the Enterprise before Kirk get the command largely because she’s been in a relationship with the two commanding officers. Once again, I do not get the appeal of this version of Kirk (or, really, the Shatner version either, but that’s long established cannon, so it gets a pass). I don’t get the appeal of this or any Spock. And I certainly don’t get why the show’s most emotionally unavailable character keeps embarking on romantic relationships and not sitting down with the ship’s counselor – who we now know exists – to actually get some damn therapy for all this lingering trauma. Perhaps a shrink could help her start doing the work on her fear about her emerging DNA that she doesn’t seem to want to do.
I’m getting tired of episodes that have an interesting hook that end up just being excuses for the cast to get to be funny while the writers try to prove that we don’t need dramatic storytelling to get to the heart of deeply dramatic issues. There’s a place for a well-thought out and constructed comedic episode. But this season has been miss after miss, trying to capture lightning in a bottle and ending up burnt. The brilliance of “Off-Hours” was that it was a clean, clear, smart episode that told the story it wanted to tell without trying to get cute about it. It’s also evidence that, when they want to, the writers understand how to craft a compelling story around their central characters. Please, for the love of god, let these last seven episodes of Strange New Worlds get back to basics.
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