I was on vacation this weekend, and what happened? They dropped the episode. Which I should’ve expected, because San Diego Comic-Con is exactly the kind of place where you drop this sort of thing. But it’s the crossover episode. Oh my God, I can’t believe it.
This is Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, season 2, episode 7, “Those Old Scientists.” There’s probably no show I’ve been more genuinely excited about seeing than this one. They dropped hints of it last year, and I’m thrilled to death with the end result. It’s amazing. I’ve seen it twice now. The first time was on my phone. Then we got back last night, watched it again, and I immediately got in here to start talking through the whole thing, because it’s a really good episode.
It Starts in the Cartoon
The episode starts, funny enough, in the animated space. Lower Decks space. The Cerritos is checking in on an ancient artifact that was found about 100 years before, discovered by Pike on the Enterprise.
Or was it? Tendi has some thoughts. She says, wait a minute, the Orions are the ones who discovered this thing a long time ago, my great-grandmother was on the ship that discovered it. And Boimler is like, come on, how many science vessels did they really have? And she’s like, yeah, who else do you think built the starships? Not a bad question, and one I’m actually here for. Great approach to Tendi.
Of course everybody goes down, and as they’re exploring they want to take some pictures, very Lower Decks style. Great callback, by the way. If you remember Voyager, there was a camera used in an episode, and it’s the exact same framing. Those guys at Lower Decks are doing wonderful work keeping canon alive.
So they take a picture and it activates something. The artifact turns out to be some sort of portal. Boimler gets sucked in, Mariner tries to jump after him, and unfortunately it closes before she can. Big moment. Where’s Boimler?
Then we come to Strange New Worlds and the real world. I say real because we go from animated to live action. You see Boimler, played by the ever so talented Jack Quaid, come flying out of the time portal. He’s kind of dizzy, and sure enough there’s Una and Spock standing there. He says this looks so real, and he faints. And Una calls it in: Captain, we may have a problem.
The Opening Is All Animated, and I Was Stupid Thrilled
The opening credits are all animated, and I was stupid thrilled by it. It’s just fun, man. It’s so much fun seeing them explore what they can do with it. I enjoyed it to no end. You get the entire intro done that way, and there’s this really awesome part where the ship comes out of one of the decorative nebulas and it’s got the little alien squid attached to it, just like on Lower Decks.
This is one of those episodes that’s really going to stay with me for a while. A lot of folks are saying it’s got to be right up there with “Trials and Tribble-ations.” The goofy part doesn’t put it there for me. What puts it there is how iconic it is, and how referential and reverential an episode it is. By that I mean it really does lay a lot of groundwork, and they do a really good job with it.
Boimler Boimlers Himself All Over the Bridge
We wake up with Boimler in sickbay. You saw the clip last week, where he wakes up to see Pike standing over him and tries to play it off.
There’s an awesome moment right before he wakes up. They’re looking at his delta, and it’s also a communicator, you push the little button. And I think it was, no, it was Pike, who says flipping it open is the best part. And the answer is, yeah, no, totally. I loved it. They took the opportunity to do a little meta commentary about the different Star Treks, and I thought it was touching and that they did a really good job with it.
Boimler wakes up all excited, and they’re telling him, okay, you can’t really say much. He and Una are walking down the corridor, and she sort of implies that she has also time traveled. They’re reviewing the temporal rules, because Boimler establishes later on that if he isn’t careful he’s going to end up having to stick around, living off the grid somewhere, nice and carefully.
That’s when the Orions show up for the first time. They’d gone back down to the planet to investigate, and they find there’s a specific kind of metal that made the portal turn active. Spock finds a little control panel, the whole bit. All of a sudden the Orions show up, everyone gets transported back up, everyone comes to the bridge, and Boimler can’t help himself. He Boimlers himself all over the bridge.
Pike, I feel, is playing the straight man in this whole situation. He’s the long-suffering “what is happening, why am I going through this right now” person, and I love that for him. I think Anson Mount is uniquely equipped for that role and he does a wonderful job with it. He keeps telling Boimler to be quiet. Boimler tries to explain: trust me, I can’t tell you why I know that’s a science vessel. And Pike’s like, do Orions have science vessels? And Boimler says yes, and I come from a time where it’s a little offensive to imply that all Orions are pirates.
Pike tries to settle everybody down, we’ll figure this whole thing out, it’s going to be okay. And then the Orions steal the artifact. Pike is not happy. Not happy in the least.
There’s a moment earlier where Boimler sees Una and jumps away from her, all “oh my God, oh my God.” She takes it to mean he must know something about her future and her fate. Something bad must happen, and he doesn’t want to talk to her about it. That’s the implication, and she gets there completely of her own volition.
So how do they find the Orions? Boimler says, I can track them. How in the world can you track the Orions? Look, I know how to do it, I can make the adjustments, maybe you just don’t look. We can’t do that. Can we? And sure enough, they cut to everyone facing the other direction while he does his thing.
When he finishes, they track down the Orions and go talk to them. And here’s a really cool name drop. They decide to trade triticale grain, grain made specifically for one colony that’s having issues growing anything, built to grow in their particular temperature. They trade it for the artifact and put the artifact back.
Spock Is Smiling, and It’s Off-Putting
While all this is happening, there’s a brief moment where Boimler is in the lounge and Ortegas and Chapel show up. Not really harassing him, but talking to him about the situation, about movie night, this and that.
Spock has now encountered Boimler several times, and every time, he’s doing this weird smiling thing or trying to laugh about stuff. It’s very off-putting. To the point that when Boimler sees him smile at Chapel, it’s this really disconcerting, very disturbing smile. So Boimler talks to Chapel a little bit. He tells her, look, my Spock is very serious, and I need him to do the things he’s supposed to do, and I don’t know what’s going on.
That feeds the idea that not everything you’re seeing is how it’s supposed to play out, and it won’t ultimately play out that way. If you have concerns about canon, you need to not have them. This is a fad. This is a phase. As we know, in TOS they are eventually not together. So I think by the end of the season, or at least by the end of this run of Strange New Worlds, they’re going to find out they work better as friends. It’ll probably be a big emotional breakup, they’ll stay colleagues who respect one another, and meanwhile she’ll keep this unrequited love for him. That’s what this moment is setting up.
They Aren’t Acting Like Cartoons
They get called down to the planet to try this thing again. There’s enough charge in the ore for one more jump. They activate it, Boimler is about to go in, and Mariner comes flying out. And she is so Mariner.
One of the things people considered distracting was the idea that these characters act like cartoons. They aren’t acting like cartoons. You’re thinking that because they come from a cartoon. They’re acting like their characters. Characters, regardless of place, act and behave a certain way. I loved that. Them having their own personalities worked great.
I also had a friend of mine, one of my colleagues on the Discord, point out that Starfleet keeps a chronological order of events and has very specific rules about this sort of thing, and basically this episode breaks all of those rules.
Now Mariner’s aboard, and what are they going to do? They meet, they need to figure this whole thing out, and Mariner puts her foot in her mouth and basically volunteers to help Uhura translate the glyphs on the artifact. Boimler gets handed to Spock, because he took a semester of synthesis. It’s interesting to see how the interplay works.
Mariner is geeking out over Uhura. Everybody’s geeking out over everybody. And Uhura is basically saying, I don’t understand, I haven’t done anything yet to earn this. Mariner tells her they’ve got to relax. She doesn’t pull rank, because they’re both ensigns, but she basically says, look, there’s a Starfleet code that says we’re supposed to take breaks. So they go take a break, and Ortegas is there, and she makes them this Orion drink. They don’t have the actual Orion liqueur that goes in it, but she makes her best variation. And sure enough, while they’re talking it all comes out about the glyphs, because Ortegas knows some things and Mariner knows some things, and ultimately it helps.
Spock Works It Out
Then we jump to Spock and Boimler, who are working on synthesizing the ore that’s needed. And Spock says to him, you clearly said something about the future, what’s going on? Spock is not stupid. He deduces that Boimler is reacting the way he’s reacting, and said the things he said, because of how Spock is behaving.
And Spock’s answer is that he isn’t going to stop his exploration of human emotions, because that’s the path he would have chosen anyway, and stopping because of what Boimler said feels like it would be changing things. It’s a logical and reasoned approach. I get it, and I think he’s right, especially because of something he says a little later about how exhausting it is.
They end up destroying the little lab. It doesn’t work, it explodes, and they can’t synthesize the thing.
Pike’s Birthday
Boimler ends up talking with Pelia, and Pelia is being her normal Pelia-like self. He’s asking her how they fix this in a way that isn’t going to break time, and finally she tells him, look, just figure out how to fix the thing.
They had to give up the grain, so he wants to break into a shuttle, which he does. Mariner’s there, because she anticipated him doing something stupid. That’s cartoon logic all day and I’m fine with it. She tries to help him break the rules, only to have Una catch them.
So they go to Pike, and Pike’s upset. All through the episode you’ve been finding out that Pike’s birthday is a holiday, and the crew wants to throw him a party. While he’s dressing them down, he tells them he’s taking them to Starbase 1 and they’re going to be somebody else’s issue, he can’t keep worrying about what they’ve got going on. And on a personal note, please stop encouraging my crew to throw me a party.
Boimler tries to explain: what if there’s a time when you aren’t able to enjoy a party? Clearly they’re talking about what we know is going to happen to Pike in the future. The accident, the wheelchair, the whole nine yards. And Pike says, I get it, but my desire not to have a party has nothing to do with that and everything to do with the past. Come to find out, he and his father never had a good relationship. What he wants is to go spend some quiet time having a conversation with his father, who’s dead. This is the year he’ll be a year older than his father was when he died.
At that point, I tell you what, Boimler says something really incredible. He says, okay, I get it. But as much as you wish you could have one more conversation with your dad, what if the people who care about you are one day going to wish they’d had one more conversation with you?
It really put some things in perspective for Pike, and I like what they did with it.
The Piece of the NX-01
They’re having a big meeting about the whole thing, and the solution turns out to be a tradition. Before you build the next starship, if it bears the same name, a piece of the last one is put into the new ship. So there’s a piece of the NX-01 Enterprise aboard, and the NX-01 was built using the mineral the time portal needs. They find it in engineering. It’s really cool.
And you get this great moment where the crew of the Enterprise is geeking out over the NX-01 people. Ortegas is geeking out about the pilot from the old ship. Uhura is geeking out about Hoshi Sato and the communications work.
I wasn’t a big fan of Enterprise. I didn’t like the show. I had major problems with it at the time. I watched it because I’m a Star Trek fan and I watch Star Trek, but there were things I didn’t like about it. This helped me. If I see it as heroes who helped inspire heroes, I get it. I’m willing to go there. And as a result, I kind of want to rewatch Enterprise, to be honest. That sounds like the silliest thing ever, but the truth is they’ve made me really want to rewatch it and get an appreciation for it, especially knowing the Strange New Worlds crew knew all of it.
This is the part where Uhura says, oh my gosh, are we sounding like them? Meaning Mariner and Boimler. And Spock says yes, and it’s exhausting.
I feel like in that moment we’re seeing the beginning of Spock realizing that this approach to emotional connection, to human insight, is not for him. Even though it’s sitting inside this comedy-centric episode, I believe firmly that’s going to be the case. It’s going to end up being not for him.
Before they transport down, Spock says, “Live long and prosper, Mr. Boimler.” And Mariner reacts, and you can tell, because Pike clearly knows it’s special too. Pike’s like, yeah, that’s awesome. It was such a great moment.
This whole episode was fun. It was full of member berries. It was us. I feel like this was us, if we’d ever been in the position to meet the characters in real life. I really do.
That’s All I Ever Wanted, Man
They get down to the planet to use the device to get back, and the Orions are there. So they explain: listen, these people are from the future and they’ve got to travel back to the future. And Boimler says one of our close friends is named Tendi, and gives the title she’s known by on Orion. The Orion captain says, how do you know that name? I have a crew member who goes by that name. And Boimler says, yeah, that’s her great-grandmother. And listen, if you let this whole thing go down, we’ll let everybody know it was discovered by Orion scientists.
And the dude’s like, that’s all I ever wanted, man.
I love that. It proves Tendi was right, and it adds depth to the Orions that I feel like we don’t often get. Don’t get me wrong, Discovery showed us a lot of who they were militaristically and all the other stuff. But this was good. It’s exciting.
They activate the thing, they go back, and we switch back to the animated world. In the Lower Decks universe you find out that Mariner was the one who really fought hard for that mission, because she knew Boimler would want to go on it. It’s really sweet, and again it shows that team being as unified as they can be.
Then we cut to black and come back on an animated Enterprise. The crew is enjoying the drink, because the Orions gave them the Orion liqueur it needs. And at one point they’re all asking what’s going on with their eyes, why does everything feel so two-dimensional? Apparently the drink is having that effect. It’s great.
The Verdict
Strange New Worlds “Those Old Scientists” lands at a 10 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.
Come on, you had to know it was coming. 10 out of 10. Let’s go. Loved it. Loved everything about it. You’re going to love it, and if you don’t love it, I don’t know what weird curmudgeon world you’re living in.
There’s more coming on this one. Mrs. Know-It-All and Baby Know-It-All are joining me for a Trek Talk Tuesday episode, a show I used to do, where we’ll get into what some people are saying online and what the crossover meant. Mrs. Know-It-All has been with me in the past for Strange New Worlds, and Baby Know-It-All reviewed Lower Decks with me, so they’re the right two people for it.
Drop a comment on the video above and tell me where this one lands for you. Is it up there with “Trials and Tribble-ations,” and did it make you want to go back to Enterprise the way it did me?
