Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 4x08 "Orders of Magnitude"

I really enjoyed this one. The core moral dilemma of orders versus morals, captured in a strong A story and a decent B story. Genuine character growth, and an out for M'Benga that made sense, was in character, and felt justified. The direction was really nice, it captured the tense nature of the episode. The treknobabble for the A plot was pretty decent, and in the B plot I enjoyed the cave set - it felt used and full, not bare like they sometimes do. I really enjoyed the acting here - the Andorian leader gave me a hint of cardassian in his analytical takedown of humans, and the badmiral was really enjoyable from his upbeat arrival to steady decline into madness. The two Kirks getting along really well was enjoyable, and the synchronised walk and talk at the end was a nice way to wrap up the episode.

From this season's approach, I'm guessing this episode drawing from old war films, in particular I am getting flavours of submarine hunts, chasing after wakes, and handling big questions of WMDs, the sanity of the chain of command. This is exactly the way I like those references embedded, allowing the trek to shine through, rather than the gimmick taking over.

My only immediate quibble in this episode was when Uhura went Rambo in the caves, it did feel like the Andorians went down a little easy, but I wasn't that bothered by it. A'Sha leaving is fine, I guess, she didn't feel very present throughout the season anyway.

Please, more of this type of episode.

A pretty good episode that got a lot more interesting in the final act.

For the most part, it came off as a story that we've seen before, albeit a well-told one. But the reveal that Kirk drugged Reeger in order to make him unfit for commend is a genuinely compelling idea, as is the idea that M'Benga just torpedoed his career to cover it up.

The B-plot was decent, too - it was good to see Uhura do some ass-kicking.

They sure do like to talk about the Klingon War as if it's ancient history when it only ended about five years ago, though.

Good episode. I didn’t think they needed to drug the admiral - there were already emotional (family) and experience (Kirk snr actually being in command at that earlier battle) factors that could been used as kindling for a breakdown.

I was internally screaming "somebody do something!" this whole episode. This was a great episode. My emotions were all over the place. I don't quite understand why the admiral at the end kept acting like he could end Kirk and then M'Benga's career. He just admitted to forging logs. What was everybody else's take on that situation? I can't imagine the Enterprise officers are also going to keep quiet about what happened on the Constitution.

Just got to watch this week's. It was all right, I guess, compared to most of the rest of the season. My best praise is it was good enough to make me forego head-desking that they found yet another reason to get Kirk aboard the Enterprise for a story about him.

Wow, actually exploring a Strange New World for a bit.

The intro came in really late this one. Ten minutes? Long opening, but then again it's a longer episode.

Oh snap, an Andorian episode. I love Andorian episodes.

Was that the countdown sound from Independence day?

Overall liked this episode. It was a feeling similar to that Spongebob episode where the customers go "that's what we've been waiting for!" A classic Star Trek moral quandary orders vs Badmiral deal.

Why couldn't they be like this every week?

Definite TOS Movie vibe to this one, especially in the superlative soundtrack.

Definitely enjoyed this one. It was fun seeing Kirk doing what he does best and following his gut no matter the cost. Been really enjoying Paul Wesley on this.

Well, this was a great episode.

The only downside is that the Badmeral didn't get his comeuppance like is tradition, but I can excuse that because we get some justification why M’Benga gets a demotion.

We've seen this plot a few times, I don't feel that's a bad thing. I feel like some of the best of Star Trek, and especially SNW, is just recycling plots but doing them better, or at least something different.

Also, it was super nice to give Uhura the spotlight. It felt a bit over the top, but I kind of accept it... I kind of wish A’Sha had a bit more development to land her decision, but she was not having a good time on the Enterprise and she clearly almost died, and technically she's seen enough times where the Enterprise was almost destroyed, it really does seem logical for her to nope out of Star Fleet. I cannot fault the Vulcan prioritizing self preservation over Uhura's attempts to make her feel welcomed.

And a few continuity notes. The ship is obviously the same one from Balance of Terror. The other helms men next to Sulu says, everyone knows who attacked the Star Fleet Base. So this cloak ship has been a problem for a while and everyone knows of it, but there is likely political problems that make it impossible to deal with.

We also know cloaking tech is not new, as we also see it in ENT's Minefield.

We also seen an alternate reality version of Balance of Terror in SNW's A Quality of Mercy, which I feel this has some strange parallels with. Where in QoM Pike hesitates to attack the Romulan Ship, while we see in BoT Kirk is gungho. In this one Kirk is less gungho (but like, reasonably so). I just thought it was an interesting take. It also explains why the writers need to make sure Pike wasn't on board or else he'd have spoiled the big reveal that it was Romulans.

Yaaay, a badmiral!

SMW actually makes a Star Trek episode! I've heard this described as the best episode of Star Trek for 20 years. I think I agree.

Annotations for 4x08 up at: https://startrek.website/post/44454788

Boy, I just discovered that people are picking apart the star map in this episode. There's a hair trigger to just get angry about anything at this point 😂