Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x08 "Under the Cloak of War"
Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x08 "Under the Cloak of War"
Logline
Captain Pike and his crew welcome a Klingon defector aboard the USS Enterprise, but his presence triggers the revelation of some shocking secrets.
Written by Davy Perez
Directed by Jeff Byrd
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One of SNW’s strongest episodes. My only critique would be that there’s no way Starfleet would let it slide that a crew member killed a very important ambassador — no matter what the story. There’d better be a future episode where Starfleet leadership tries to throw Mbenga under the bus or something.
Also, please spend a little more money on the Klingon headpiece so it doesn’t look like it came from Party City.
Up until the final scene, I was loving the episode. I'm still not sure I feel about that ending. But you are probably on to seomthign that there will be a follow up episode next season.
That Klingon headpiece and wig combination was evoking bad clown makeup.
The shininess of the prosthesis and lack of significant colour grading of the ridges made it appear all the more fake. I am not getting why so many fans think this is an improvement.
isnt it meant to be a halfway house between TOS to TNG
Seems more like a midpoint between TNG and DSC designs to me. He has that nondescript head ridge from DSC's Klingons, for instance.
He may well be one of the "humanized" Klingons from the Augment virus, who is using prostheses to look like uninfected Klingons. Or who had less-than-successful plastic surgery for the same reason. But didn't yet modify the human style teeth.
At this point in the timeline there's probably a mix of original ridged Klingons, TOS-type humanized Klingons, surgically and prostheses-restored Klingons, and overreacted-gene-therapy blue/grey double-nostrilled Discovery-style Klingons running around. Probably on separate ships so they don't have to look at or be looked at by other style Klingons who consider each other dishonored.
A mix of Klingon types is a very compelling situation and I’d really welcome seeing it in a live action show.
I understand why the EPs wanted, practically to pull back from the full face printed prostheses that have been the norm on Discovery for all aliens. They very much impede expression. It takes a lot for the actors to project their performance through.
However the Klingons in SNW aren’t quite working. Somehow, depending on lighting, they have a very plastic quality that does not give a natural skin effect in UHD.
The ones we saw in the season premiere varied in this to some degree, but under the brightness of the lighting on Enterprise it was extremely evident in some scenes. The kind of airbrushing that was done for Worf on the latex prostheses back in the 90s likely wouldn’t work in UHD, but what they’ve got just isn’t working on our OLED.
On the other hand, I found the Andorian special forces officer to be the best Andorian of the current era.