“Lost in Translation” is a well-put-together mystery story, complete with extra-dimensional beings, freaky hallucinations, brilliant character moments — and a healthy dose of Kirk family drama.
 
Celia Rose Gooding and Paul Wesley’s immaculate chemistry ties together an interesting plot that ensures that our first in-person meeting with the “real” Jim Kirk is not to be forgotten. (Also, the whole plot is based on interstellar logistics and starship refueling — a massive plus for me!)
 

Enterprise is route to Bannon’s Nebula on the edge of Federation territory, where a deuterium refinery is being established — the first step to opening up the frontier for exploration, and for shoring up Starfleet’s defenses against the Gorn. It’s an exciting moment for everybody, especially the temporarily-promoted Fleet Captain Pike (Anson Mount), even if Enterprise and Farragut are just there to help get the last bugs out of the new station’s systems.

As Enterprise takes a moment to refuel itself using the nacelle-mounted Bussard collectors, a sleep-deprived and overworked Ensign Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) is surprised by a jarring signal that seems to have no source whatsoever. Chasing down the system fault takes her up into the ship’s starboard warp nacelle, where she encounters Pelia (Carol Kane), who in her own way comments on Uhura’s standoffishness towards the engineer.

I like the idea that the crew are a little distant from Pelia, this aloof stranger who stepped into the void left by the departed Hemmer (Bruce Horak) — seen this week in recorded training videos — and how difficult it is to step into someone’s shoes like that. For Uhura, the void from Hemmer’s loss is still a huge one, and I appreciate that the writers haven’t left that pain behind.

Their connection was too strong to be ignore, and Uhura seems to understand this — enough so that when she hears the jarring noise again, she’s frightened by a hallucination of the Aenar’s dead body!

There is nothing particularly new about this setup from a Star Trek perspective; because the plot beats are a bit predictable, centering this episode our still-green Ensign Uhura — as opposed to any of the more experienced Starfleet characters — was definitely the right choice. Is she suffering from deuterium poisoning, or is she just fatigued? Doctor M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) suspects both, and takes off the active duty roster… though Uhura doesn’t seem convinced.

Over on the refinery, Pelia and Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) lead the away team sent to tackle the station’s technical problems, and immediately clash over repair prioritization plans. Kane and Romjin are not a pairing I would have predicted, and yet they work surprisingly well as Pelia’s idiosyncrasies get under Una’s skin in no time at all — even as evidence of sabotage is found aboard the station.

(We eventually learn that Una doesn’t like Pelia because she’s missing Hemmer, too; it’s a fitting ending to a less-than-interesting subplot. Truthfully, I found the Pelia and Una squabble intriguing at first, but it became an increasing distraction from Uhura’s story as the hour passed.)

Both mysteries get pushed to the side for a bit, however, as the Enterprise welcomes Lieutenant James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley), coming aboard from the Farragut to visit his brother Sam (Dan Jeannotte). Their tense conversation is a fascinating introduction to the brothers’ complicated relationship, as Jim’s promotion to first officer of the Farragut puts up another wall between the siblings. Jim is the success story in their father’s eyes, and his drive to break every Starfleet record is testing their relationship.

I’ve wondering how they’d present the pre-Enterprise version of Jim Kirk, and the idea that he is so blinded by ambition to be the best of the best is such an interesting prelude to the Kirk of the Original Series — who suffers loss after loss and is constantly caught in this question of whether he is the right man for the job. This is the Jim Kirk that drives Carol Marcus (and her son) away, the Kirk who Areel Shaw can’t stay around, the Kirk that drives Janice Lester to megalomania. (Though the less said about that last example, the better.)

He’s brash, and a little self-obsessed; the lessons about life that will ground him and mellow him out are years (if not decades) away — but there is still that Kirk charm and care, even if Ensign Uhura only reads it as an attempt to flirt. Leaving the poor Kirk brother alone, Uhura leaves the port galley, only be confronted by a vision of a hallway of dead crewmates before being attacked by a reflection of herself.

She fights back, finally landing a blow straight into Jim Kirk’s nose. Whoops!

Despite injuries that might suggest otherwise, Kirk believes Uhura’s claims: something beyond fatigue and poisoning must be going on. While he heads back to the Farragut to see if that ship’s medical team has any records, Pelia and Una find the saboteur deep in the bowels of the refinery — Lieutenant Ramon (Michael Reventar), an officer who appears to have lost his mind.

As Uhura suffers another frightening vision — this time, the bridge and crew getting sucked out into space — Pike does his best to understand what’s going on, just as Kirk brings evidence that Ramon has been suffering from similar visions. Catatonic in sickbay, Ramon seems completely beyond help of any kind… and then another round of jarring noises sends him in the violent panic, attacking M’Benga before escaping into the ship.

With crew under attack and power offline, Pike, Kirk, Uhura, and La’an (Christina Chong) begin a slowly-paced chase through the underlit decks. Uhura eventually catches up to Ramon in the port nacelle room, where she tries to reason with him right up until the moment he violently ejects the nacelle’s deuterium pods into space — with Ramon along for the ride. Kirk beams Uhura out before she too can be killed by the decompression; at least now they know she’s not alone, and that she’s not imagining things.

Kirk and Uhura’s talk about death sealed the deal for me on whether the Strange New Worlds writers know what they’re doing with this iconic character. It felt like a Jim Kirk moment, though one less self-reflective than those we see in the Original Series. This Kirk is fresh from the Farragut dikronium cloud incident, and lives with the memory of Tarsus IV in his mind — the deaths of people he knows and love is not academic to him, and neither is the need to past that type of loss.

This Kirk has the confidence to talk about pushing past death, and having him tell Uhura that you must push past the barriers that loss builds is a brilliant and ominous nod to the life of love and loss we know Kirk is about to live. Wesley sells this Kirk not as a man who has the burden of 430 souls on his back, but one who still has the wisdom that will allow him to carry that weight in the future — while still being effortlessly charming.

With Kirk off in search of the healing power of cookies, Uhura makes a breakthrough: she finds that the audio and voice recognition centers in Ramon’s brain was caused by a “signal overload” from an alien source. With Sam Kirk’s help, they deduce that extra-dimensional aliens living in the Bannon Nebula have been using Uhura and Ramon as a kind of universal translator… and worse, the new station’s deuterium-extraction process is a form of horrifying torture!

With the station now fully online (and unable to be shut down) Uhura and Kirk race to the bridge to report the situation. Pike listens to their story, and after contemplating the situation for a moment, orders the station personnel to evacuate… and then orders the station destroyed to protect the nebula beings from more pain.

In the episode’s final moments, the pair relax in the ship’s lounge and toast to “not letting death win” as the smooth sounds of outer-space jazz — and more Kirk brother bickering — wash over the room. Before things fade to black, though, Uhura introduces Jim Kirk to another member of the Enterprise bridge crew: science offer Spock.

CAMP NONSENSE OF THE WEEK

This week’s highlight goes to the Enterprise’s Port Galley jazz band — exactly the right kind of live music a starship should feature in the space ’60s.

OBSERVATION LOUNGE

• Captain Pike’s temporary promotion to Fleet Captain is a direct response to “The Menagerie,” where James T. Kirk shared that he met Pike “when he was promoted to Fleet Captain.” (Kirk described nothing else about his pre-“Menagerie” encounter with Pike, so the Strange New Worlds writers have cleanly taken taken care of the only mandatory canon requirement.)
• While we’ve seen other ships use their Bussard collectors for unique purposes before — the Enterprise-D had their ‘crimson force field’ in “Samaritan Snare,” and the Enterprise-E collected metreon gas in Star Trek: Insurrection, among others — but it’s not too often that we see them used for their intended purpose: collecting stellar gasses for fuel.
• Bannon’s nebula is named for Strange New Worlds actor Melissa Navia’s late partner, Brian Bannon, who passed away in December 2021.

Tonight we go on strike, but first: Star Trek & my late partner Brian Bannon changed my life. Next week’s #StrangeNewWorlds honors him. He was a force of nature, larger than life, and too bright for this world. So a nebula seems fitting. #BannonsNebula @AkivaGoldsman @alonsomyers pic.twitter.com/bNla1QaxRe

— Melissa Navia 🚀 (@melissaCnavia) July 14, 2023

• This is the first time we’ve seen the inside of a Constitution-class warp nacelle; the access tunnel through a long Jeffries tube might be a nod to the 1970s-era Franz Joseph USS Enterprise blueprints.
• When the refinery is destroyed, we can see three Farragut-type cruisers, and at least two Archer-type scouts (seen in the series premiere), and a myriad of shuttlecraft and automated transports (seen in “A Quality of Mercy”). Seems like it’s a busy day at the gas station!
• The mentions of George Kirk’s “traditionalism” are perhaps a nod to the preface to Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture novelization, which further elaborates on the Kirk family’s more traditional bend. (Is Strange New Worlds bold enough to elaborate on their mother’s “love instructor,” referenced in that book? Maybe in Season 3!)

“Lost in Translation” is, in many senses, a run-of-the-mill supernatural mystery with a decent message. It’s moral on facing death and moving forward after loss might be a little strong, but I can live with that. Having Uhura and Kirk carry that message — each of whom has a history strongly tied to death (Kirk since we’ve known him, Uhura in this modern series) — was a good choice too.

I felt like the thread through the events aboard the refinery itself were a little weak, though, as was the tease for more story between La’an and Kirk. Same with the brief “defining the relationship” moment between Chapel (Jess Bush) and Spock (Ethan Peck), which felt like a distraction from the main plot. Even if the conversation was necessary, we just had a full episode focused on those two — let Uhura keep the spotlight this week.

Paul Wesley’s take on the “real” Lieutenant Kirk, now that we’re spending time with him, portrays the future captain as a little brash and overconfident, but I think that’s to be expected — he’s headed up the promotional ladder at breakneck speed, and brushing away Sam’s sentiments is a clear prelude to their distant relationship at the time of “Operation — Annihilate!” I do wonder if the Kirk family drama is overwrought, but it didn’t take me out of the moment.

On the other hand, the fact that (as La’an puts it) he “can’t walk past a stranger in need” is a perfect piece of Kirk characterization, always unspoken in the Original Series. Whether or not it should have stayed that way is a topic for another time — having characters explain why they are the way they are can always come across as wooden — but the fact remains it is good characterization.

The fact that he — a stranger — is the person who can see that something is actually wrong with Uhura is a contrivance in itself, but it’s the sort of plot-based contrivance I can live with to keep the story moving along, especially when Wesley is convincing as that empathetic Kirk.

To the surprise of no one, however, Celia Rose Gooding is the standout star of the episode. Last year’s “Children of the Comet” was my favorite episode of Season 1, and again they prove that when on take center stage, they excel to incredible levels.

While joining the picket line in #NYC, #SAG LA Vice President @itsMichelleHurd says actors are literally working "Paycheck to paycheck" #ActorsStrike. pic.twitter.com/AWVTc4nQZO

— TheWrap (@TheWrap) July 17, 2023

I’m going to conclude by reminding everyone that quality television, especially the quality of acting and writing we’ve come to expect from Star Trek, is dependent on good pay and good conditions for writers and actors at all levels. The stories actors and writers have been sharing over the last few weeks about studio-level bullying tactics and wage theft — and the threat of AI replacing human creatives — is antithetical to both Star Trek, and to the creative arts overall.

If the WGA and SAG-AFTRA unions are defeated in this round of strike action, the sort of media environment we know and love — and I use “love” as a relative term here — could cease to exist, replaced by a grim wall of corporate exploitation and computer-generated swill. For fandom, that means that while things might take a hit now (a hiatus to actor and writer interviews, reduced celebrity attendance at conventions, changes to television and movie release schedules, etc.), it’s worth it if it means that the creative-arts community will have a better working environment.

Next week: things get a bit animated as the long-awaited Star Trek: Lower Decks crossover episode arrives!

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns with “These Old Scientists” on Thursday, July 27 on Paramount+ in the U.S, the U.K., Australia, Latin America, Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria.