It was all Patti LuPone’s fault. After all, it was the use of a recording of her singing “Anything Goes,” the titular song of the classic Broadway musical, that started this whole singing ships conundrum in “Subspace Rhapsody” – a lovely twist that made this Broadway nerd chuckle. But would the episode turn out to be a musical menagerie a la Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s now-iconic “Once More with Feeling*,” or would it turn out to be . . . well, most other musical television episodes? Happily, I’m putting this one in the win column – and right in the nick of time, seeing as the second season finale looks to be a much darker episode (which will set up a long wait for season three, with the dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes continuing as of this writing with no end in sight).
*There were what appeared to be a couple of nice nods to that particular episode, with Uhura declaring “I’ve got a theory,” which was one of the key lines in a key song in Buffy, as well as a riff on turning into bunnies, which Buffy fans will recognize as the chief fear of the character Anya, and something she sang about during the musical.
As was pointed out by Uhura in the episode (props to the writers for giving Celia Rose Gooding – a bona fide Broadway star – the final two numbers in the episode, holding her spectacular voice until the last minute and then unleashing it to absolutely bring the episode home on a massive high), songs exist in musicals to express the feelings of a character that they cannot express simply by speaking the words aloud. However, in the best musicals, those songs also exist to move the plot forward. When a creative team can connect those two key elements, magic happens. And what “Subspace Rhapsody” managed to do so well was just that – ensure that the songs helped explore key emotional beats of our characters while never losing sight of how those revelations served to advance our characters through their own journeys.
Chapel accepted that she needs to put herself first, even if that means she loses Spock in the process – great character development that also moves that piece of the plot forward in a definitive way. La’an recognized that she must take chances in her personal life – after a nice nudge from her closest confident, Una, who has been through much of the same personal journey herself – and confessed her past interaction with Alternate Kirk to Actual Kirk, and while she was ultimately shot down, learned that she can make herself vulnerable and survive intact. A great, major step for the show’s most closed-off character. And Pike and Batel had a lovely moment of connection – albeit in front of the entire Enterprise Bridge crew – which translated into greater communication between the pair. Which might be bittersweet, as many fans (myself included) are very worried Batel might not survive next week’s initial volleys in the impending Gorn War (although I absolutely hope this isn’t the case, as Melanie Scrofano is such an asset to the series). Our characters got to explore their feelings, but they also were able to make key personal and professional strides while doing so. The perfect usage of a musical. And, as someone who has seen more musicals than most folks, I’m officially declaring this part of the musical episode a success.
Now, the structural elements of a musical are just one piece of the puzzle. While your songs must allow characters to emote and advance the plot, they also have to be good songs. Not necessarily hummable – I’m a Sondheim aficionado, after all, and his works were famously dinged for not being thus, although I would disagree with that assessment on some of them – but they need to be strong musically with some solid lyrics. Here’s where I would ding things a bit. Sure, I understand something like the finale was meant to be a tad tongue-in-cheek – the whole episode was more in the comedic realm than the important dramatical wing of Strange New World’s wheelhouse. But it also felt like a bit of a weak note to end things on – singing Klingons excluded, naturally. Then again, anything after the eleven o’clock number of a show – that would be Uhura’s stunning solo song – tends to drag a bit as the story comes to a close. Overall, it was a tad heavy on the ballads for my tastes (and a couple of the actors had much stronger vocal skills than others – and yet were underused when compared to their auto-tuned co-stars, although A for effort all around, as singing like that is not easy especially if you aren’t someone like Gooding or Christina Chong, who have a clear musical background). But I’ll give them a solid B for musical quality. Which gives some room for improvement should they opt for another musical outing in the future, but which also more than makes this an episode worth re-watching. I might even buy a couple of the songs . . .
Since next week will be a return to a more complex bit of storytelling – and a set-up for a future third season – I wanted to take a moment and lavish some additional praise on the series for their deft ability to use the episodic structure of the show to play in a variety of genres with such incredible focus. There are so few live-action dramas out there today that use an episodic structure to tell their stories – nearly everything is serialized (which was something another Trek series – DS9 – helped pioneer as a storytelling form back in the 90s). But Strange New Worlds has managed to take the episodic format and use it in such a way to sample various genres – courtroom, musical, horror, time travel romance, etc. – and wrap-up seemingly complex stories in the span of an hour, all while managing to allow its characters to show meaningful growth over the season. These aren’t episodes where a moral is taught and then the characters jump off into another adventure next week without a mention of that previous one. Rather, the lessons learned in the episodes – which often act as character spotlights, but don’t need to be thus – allow the characters to learn something about themselves and the world around them and then take that knowledge and move forward, using it to figure out something down the road. It’s episodic television where the character is central and the story serves them each week. It’s a beautiful thing to watch, and this writing staff has executed it flawlessly this season.
I watch a lot of television in my role as a TV critic, and it’s rare that I get to sit down each week genuinely eager to see what story a show will tell me. Writing these reviews each week has turned into an exercise of love for me – getting to express how much each episode has touched me, has inspired me, and how the performances, direction, and writing have created some truly incredible moments of television that will stick with me well into the future. I’ve been a Star Trek fan for most of my life – it was one of the first television shows I ever watched (not that I remember it, being a toddler and all). But boy, I’m so happy to see that Trek still has the ability to create such compelling stories and interesting characters this far into its existence. Kudos to all involved with Strange New Worlds on putting together one of the best Trek series in the institution’s long history. I can’t wait to see how it all wraps up next week.
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