Strange New Worlds S2-E8- ''Under the Cloak of War '' ~~ { ** Spoilers Within ** }

This season has been mostly filling in the backgrounds of the characters.

Musical next week, and then we just have the final left.

Imagine....🙄 ffs.....

Really good ep, but the knife thing was a bit weird. Like, are we supposed to think he transported aboard with the knife on him?

Think he means more of a plot hole, the transporter should have picked up he was armed

He didn't kill his own.

M'Benga killed them with M'Benga's knife and it was he who kept it all along.

The Klingon killed no Klingons which was very clearly established.

Loved the episode except for the ending which I thought was a bit too much to have M'Benga kill him.

I liked the episode.

Great acting from M'Benga.

Cool special effects. Maybe the darkest espiode in a long while. Certainly darkest on SNW.

Couple of Qs

Chancellor of the Klingon Empire is now Male? L'Rell gone?

They seem to have completely abandoned the Discovery Klingon looks. Good.

Spock relationship seems in trouble.

So episode 9 is the musicial. Meaning 10 must be the Gorn problem from episode 1.

Now THAT was the star episode of this season. Absolutely outstanding! Loved it.

DS9 did some good episodes, especially with O'Brien, with post war themes. VOY tried with Maquis episodes but never quite got them right. SNW has gotten it perfect with this one. Exactly how it should be done. Very much expected them to do some kind of M'Benga redemption where he comes around to the side of peace but SO MUCH BETTER character development to have him stay true to his own morals. He (both actor and character) has done the heaviest lifting this season.

Chapel also showed some great mettle and her character, and relationship with M'Benga, is stronger as a result.

The Lower Decks crossover taste is well and truly washed away. 5 star episode.

I must have missed the bit with the Q's

😂

Also missed the bit where they mentioned a male Chancellor.

Yeah I know the kid in the transporter buffer was out of context at the time. I’ve a feeling they invented that at tge time and doubled down on it now but it makes sense given his past. In hindsight I like it though. If I was on the Enterprise and found out M’Benga did that for his daughter I’d definitely be thinking WTF??? and we all were in sure but I really love the callback now though while it was new to us, it was a necessary measure in the hell world M’Benga found himself in during the Klingon war. I like it. We didn’t really know M’Benga last year. I think they was his first in depth episode. Because of his experiences he’s not the kind I’d Starfleet officer we are used to. So I think feeling a bit iffy at that episode is well paid back now. His choices are meant to jar us I feel. It’s bloody fantastic.

What's the issue with having a (the?) knife on the ship?

Actually, no issue. I hadn't considered klingons might have space luggage:-)

I think you're missing the point. The official line will be that the ambassador attacked M'Benga with the knife and that he previously slaughtered his own men with the same knife, so how did he get that knife on board the ship?

Hadn’t thought of that but does he have a firm of diplomatic immunity KN that his luggage is passed through I examined. It was said that the Starfleet diplomatic core have embraced the guy so it sounds like he’s got all access anyway and it’s also possible that Starfleet brass implied that he be tahsin onboard without any scrutiny. I could definitely see a plausible case for not checking his luggage coming on board. Similarly he may have had the knife on his person but maybe that would show on transporter logs. Anyway I get the feeling M’Benga is on Pike’s watchlist now.

It was a box of war memorabilia, having that in your office isn't too strange especially with the added context of some of these characters originating in the 60s where a lot of the population, about 23 out of 180 million, of the US were veterans.

I thought it was a pretty good episode overall and a better point of view of the war than Discovery gave us. It's been a very stand alone season but that's not a bad thing.

The knife thing is incredibly straightforward.

M’Benga took his special medicine and started slaughtering Klingons. He got as far as the General’s bunker where his three loyal subordinates tried to protect him. M’Benga killed them with his knife but the General escaped.

General becomes a ‘peace Ambassador’ by claiming he killed his troops to disguise the fact he was a coward who ran.

M’Benga kept the knife, never cleaned it and it had the DNA of the subordinates still on it.

It is all shown in the episode if people just pay attention.

Do transporters consider knives weapons? It's usually phaser/disruptors/etc that get flagged and wasn't that more a TNG era thing anyway?

Felt a bit unfinished to me. Ortegas storms out of dinner, and that's it for her. You can see now why Federation Star Ships introduced councilors like Troi and Miglemoo in the future for events like this.

This was bleak, no fun, nothing much to smile about, not really Star Trek. OK for an episode, but I wouldn't watch an entire series of Federation at war.

I think I actually have more leeway for an episode like his in SNW than I would in TNG or the post-TNG shows. I’ve always said that while I appreciate plenty about DS9, I never really appreciated the dark brooding war story of the later seasons. Star Trek was supposed to be the brightest future, not the same old problems.

But… SNW isn’t post-TNG. This is the history of how they got there, and it’s established well enough that things were a little rougher around the edges in the TOS era.

And also, very importantly, it’s not a multiple episode or season arc, it’s just one episode sandwiched between a goofball comedy and a musical. I think that’s great. Really enjoyed it.

I get why some people don’t like this episode because Star Trek is supposed to be a positive view of the future. I think they was true whole Gene was at the helm and even TNG gut a bit darker after his passing.

I love the positive vibes of the future YNG represents but if you scratch a bit the cracks show. It’s simply unrealistic. I’ve seen plenty of TBG episodes where a crew member (red shirt) gets killed on a mission and tge message is to focus on the mission sbd there’ll be time to grieve later. Good advice but life doesn’t work that way. People react in their own way to stressors and even they sometimes are surprised by their reaction.

I thought this episode was one of the most honest episodes of Trek I’ve seen. It’s why I’d lump it in with DS9 where reality came home to roost at times. You can’t expect crew members to go through a hell like they war and just report for duty escorting the old enemy like nothing has happened. I think this was a flaw in TNG that they did move to correct later on. Definitely it’s why TNG era ships likely have counsellors.

I've been mulling this one around in my brain for the last couple of days.

My initial reaction was that I liked it ... Horror of war stories can be quite compelling and this had that in spades, with a wee whiff of M*A*S*H (minus the humour) ... the relentless and seemingly never ending "Incoming Transport!" really amped up the tension. I was sort of waiting for some young guy to be wandering around saying "Shuttlecraft!" like Radar used to say "Choppers!" in M*A*S*H. 😁

Anyway, as the war was set before "Roddenberry's Trek" then I think we can have these much darker, humans aren't perfect situations, so that the people can develop into the more "enlightened" ones in TOS and TNG. It's definitely more in keeping with the tone of the later DS9 seasons.

So yeah ... an excellent episode I think.

I think if I were to be binging this season later, I might re-order the episodes and do the crossover and musical together, before watching this and the final episode, as the whiplash in tone of the episodes might break something. 🤪

Yeah im starting to think the same. Last season there were a few good episodes but this one has been poor overall. Im not quite sure what it is but its just not clicking. Maybe in time it will find its grove.