Kirk & Spock and Zombies, the disappointing Pride & Prejudice sequel. After directing a lot of The Walking Dead, Shadow and Bone, as well as some Picard, Dan Liu helms this run-out. You might remember that he also did “Momento Mori” last season. Not only am I going to complain about Liu here in a few, but “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” writer David Reed as well as Onitra Johnson in her only lead writing credit this season after being a staff writer for everything else. We can spend days dancing around the details of why I’m such a downer, but let’s not.

To be blunt, “Lost in Translation” is a wasted episode that could have done a billion different things to make it feel special and interesting. We got an episode that could be written in your head within the first 5-10 minutes, and it is just fan-service nostalgic tripe that could be found on Tumblr back in 2013. Why do I care that Kirk is breathing and arguing with his brother? Why do I care that La’an feels awkward around him? Why did we need to do aliens in the fog without an interesting twist or a Star Trek resolution?

This is a horror episode directed to be a decent suspenseful thriller, yet the story of Uhura’s torment by the gassy aliens doesn’t live up to its otherwise gripping charms. “Lost in Translation” feels like two or three episodes smashed together. You have Liu’s direction trying to bring in a sense of tension, you have Uhura’s connection with the aliens working with that, and you have Kirk, Spock, and a load of TOSs.

That’s what I think “Lost in Translation” is, toss: an episode that could have said something or done something interesting in a Star Trekky way, but wanted to feel the inside of its pockets some more. You have Uhura having hallucinations, the story of her being overworked, the story of this fight against the Gorn in the background, and you have decent enough direction for the most part. However, that’s just a vehicle so we can have Spock and Tiberius have their first proper meeting. All so we can marvel at how striking Paul Wesley is in a tight yellow uniform.

I just don’t get it. Strange New Worlds is a prequel series, but it also has to be its own thing and we almost got that by playing on Celia Rose Gooding’s Uhura being a focal point. We had a solid bit of story since she still isn’t over Hemmer’s death. We also have the Gorn story in the background, but it all feels like we’re back to square one by the end of the episode because the resolution is very TOS. As gas people try to communicate with the Enterprise while it sets up a refinery to harvest them, Uhura doesn’t feel right and is tormented by the ghost of her friend. How do you resolve that?

Blow up the refinery which was already active and had some of the gas people in it, presumably killing them. That will be fine and of course, doesn’t seem to go against everything Star Trek is about. Sure, Pike does say at the end that he’ll take the fall for what happened and will direct Starfleet to look elsewhere, but surely the damage is already done. Not only was the Bavali Station collecting deuterium in that third act, but Ortegas was ordered to “do laps” with the Bussard Collector active, collecting deuterium throughout 90% of the episode.

It feels like someone was supposed to have an episode in, missed the deadline, and two writers were picked to quickly put something together. Then it landed on script supervisor Jeannine Dupuy’s desk and went straight through to production. At best it is a half-baked thriller finished off with a side of Tiberius commenting on Spock’s 3D Chess playing. As a full episode, it doesn’t really make sense from a Star Trek perspective because this resolution is so rushed and built on “we’re friends now.” I’d be on the Uhura phone moaning about my dead friends.

However, if we’re going to complain about something with the writing, I need to complain about the direction too because there are two glaring omissions in that as well. Where was the Farragut? We’re told time and time again about the Farragut and we have Kirk (the one without face-fluff), but we never see it in Bannon’s Nebula, not once. I don’t need to hear that it is around, I would much sooner believe it if I could see it. However, that’s not the biggest issue, at least not going forward.

Throughout the second act and into the third, we’ve got the saboteur (Lieutenant Ramon) who is breaking the Bavali Station and later the Enterprise. He’s doing so because the gas aliens are trying to talk to him/through him, but because he isn’t Uhura and has her language skills, it drives him insane. Again, you could have written this entire episode from the first 5-10 minutes. My point is he blows up and dies in one of the nacelles, causing massive destruction and resulting in him freezing to death in the vacuum of space. Because of this, there is a big hole in the wall.

When does that get repaired? Is it the moment that he’s out in space and we’re not meant to think about it or is it a point between episodes that we’re going to ignore because it is inconvenient to ask these questions when we need Spock and Kirk to meet? It could have been fixed with a single shot or a little line from Pelia moaning about these kids and their antics of blowing stuff up. It isn’t like it was the Farragut, it was the ship we’re supposed to care about. Frustratingly, we’re either told not to care or not to think about it too much.

If you can look past the fact that “Lost in Translation” is a bog standard episode of sci-fi and that it isn’t very Star Trek unless you count nostalgic ghost train rides as Star Trek, it is an okay episode. The resolution is a sticking point and the direction telling and not showing annoys me, so I wouldn’t consider it a good episode. The reason the nostalgia is such a sticking point for the episode we got is simply the fact that we know everything there is to know about Spock and Kirk aside from their bedroom antics, which Tumblr and its ilk have covered extensively. I need more.

Uhura has more story to explore because she was a Black woman in a show shot in the ’60s. She didn’t have the biggest roles but Nichelle Nichols made her a standout. There is more we could do with Spock learning to forgo this Vulcan repression, being less stiff and more applicable to a modern character that is likable. We could explore more of M’Benga, La’an, and there is plenty more to explore of Una. I’d like to see more of Pelia. I could watch more of Chapel when she’s not pining over Spock, and I’d like to get back to some story on Pike. That’s why I don’t care where or when those two met.

I don’t know why I feel like I need to say this because I want to like all of the episodes, but I wanted to enjoy “Lost in Translation.” As an episode of Strange New Worlds, it only adds a tiny piece to Hemmer’s send-off in “All Those Who Wander.” It gives Uhura a moment to grieve a friend, but both writers wrote episodes about grief, and one of them I didn’t like while I enjoyed the other. There is no saying who wrote what pieces and quite frankly I don’t care, good writers have off days.

Ultimately, I don’t like the lack of a twist or the lack of something interesting being done with making peace with the hydrogen-based aliens. The resolution of blowing stuff up reeks of using up the VFX budget so you can request a bigger one next time. The nostalgia is only there to appease the wiki writers, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to hold on to from “Lost in Translation” when it is over. The fake Hemmer smiling and waving goodbye to Uhura? No, I hold onto the moment when Uhura nearly breaks Kirk’s nose during a hallucination. It will serve him right when he eventually shags his way across the universe.

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SNW "Lost in Translation"

5

Score

5.0/10

Pros

• I do love Celia Rose Gooding as Uhura.
• That punch. You go, girl!

Cons

• Can we understand that "Show don't tell" is the rule, not the exception?
• A nostalgic ghost train ride of an episode at times.
• That's not a Star Trek resolution, behave yourself.