Well, hello, kids and cadets. Welcome to another FSF Blog Post. So for those of you who are familiar with the FSF PopCast or have watched it just a few times, you’ve come to know that I haven’t always been the biggest Star Trek fan. So for me, this is kind of outside the box territory to be able to sit down and talk about reasons why I think you should be watching this show. Let’s talk about the five reasons, the five things that helped me get into a Star Trek show and make me look forward to a season two.
Number 5
Number five is the easy entry into the franchise. You may have thought that you needed to watch this show in order to understand what was going on, that you needed to watch Star Trek Discovery. You needed to watch Disco, because this is where our new show, Star Trek Strange New Worlds, was born from. That’s where we meet Captain Pike. This version of Captain Pike. Anson Mount’s, Captain Pike. But, the nice thing about Strange New Worlds is that there’s not a knowledge point required in order to get into the series. And that’s what I appreciate most about it. I didn’t have to have a whole lot of Star Trek knowledge in order to get into this and to understand what was going on. The way that this series starts off, you jump right in and they introduce the characters and they start building it right from there and it makes it so it’s a very easy watch, a very enjoyable watch. So it’s not necessary and you don’t have to have that knowledge point to get into it and understand what’s going on. And for me, coming from a very Star Wars heavy background, this was kind of nice being able just to get into it, meet the characters, some, of course, who we already know, some of whom we’re getting to know and some we were being introduced to. Its like a USB plug and play – nothing extra required.
Number 4
Number four is the fact that it’s an Episodic show. With Strange New Worlds, Star Trek goes back to its episodic roots, and that means that every episode is self contained. It’s a story in of itself, and to me that makes it kind of cool and part of the reason why I enjoyed the story. Of course in various episodes there are some callbacks to previous episodes, there’s some pieces or parts of this episode that happen in other episodes, but this part here isn’t dependent upon this part here in order for it to be able to go through the rest of the series. The same way you don’t need to watch “The Cage” or “The Menagerie” from the Original Series, but you get rewarded for the effort if you do, it adds to the overall flavor of the stew so to speak. This Episodic flow will help you to be able to learn more about the characters and what’s going on with them in future episodes and understand the callbacks.
number 3
Number three is the cast. It’s an amazing ensemble cast. There’s Ethan Peck, Melissa C. Navia, Bruce Horak. Rebecca Romijn, Christina Chong, Jess Bush, Anson Mount and others. Some of the cast are taking on new characters, and some have the challenge of taking on characters that we’ve known about for a while. They work so well together, they play off one another so very well And because of that, lets look at a couple of characters in particular. The friendship of Melissa C. Navia’s. Ortega’s and Jess Bush’s, Nurse Chapel. The way that they work together and the way that they joked together, you could really see their friendship on the screen, and they made it work so very well. I’m looking forward to seeing more of that in season two, how they work together and everything else about their friendship moving forward. And then, of course, Anson Mount as Captain Pike, and frankly, he’s a brilliant cast. He does a fantastic job as Captain Pike. There are more we can talk about, such as Bruce Horak as Hemmer … but I am getting ahead of myself. Number 2
Number 2
Of course, if there’s cast members that we got to know and we’ve loved and we’ve appreciated and we’re looking forward to them in season two, well, then, we have to talk about the loss of Hemmer. I really enjoyed Hemmer. He was one of my favorite characters in season one. I loved his approach to things, how stoic he was. Expertly played by Bruce Horak, which is appropriate since both Bruce and Hemmer are visually impaired. If you want to learn more about Bruce and how he played Hemmer, you could go to episode 91 of the FSF PopCast and listen to / watch an interview with Bruce Horak. We talk about this role for him, which was a role of a lifetime and how much he enjoyed it. We talk about how he came to his end and everything else, and it’s really good. We specifically talk about the Return of the Gorn and how it was very much a horror/thriller on set and how that affected the cast and crew. But one of the things I am looking forward to in this upcoming season is Carol Kane. From what I can find, we think she’s going to be a replacement for Bruce Horak as Hemmer. But if you’re not familiar with who Carol Kane is, if you watched Gotham, she was Oswald Cobblepot’s mother, and if you’ve ever seen the movie Princess Bride, “I’m not a witch, I’m your wife”. Yeah, that’s Carol Kane right there with Billy Crystal. She’s a fantastic actress. And again, as well as they have done casting other people, I’m positive that Carol Kane will fit in here just as well.
Number 1
What a storyline with Una Chen Reilly. Number one. After we meet her, we get to know more about what’s going on with her story, her background being, Illyrian, lying on her Star Trek app to get in hiding the fact that she was Illyrian. The Illyrian’s were not allowed in the Federation because of the genetic mods and alterations. At the end of season 1, we have this cliffhanger of Rebecca Romijn’s character Una Chen Riley being arrested and taken away. I’m very curious as to what’s going to go on in season two, because we’ve got this cliffhanger. The relationship / friendship between Captain Pike and his Number One, how will that be affected? Will he stand up for her? Vouch for her? Will he be allowed to do so under Federation law? There is a lot to unpack with this cliffhanger and I am anxious to see how it plays out.
All things Considered
If you’re more of an audio person than a visual person, you can of course find us on Google Podcast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever. If we’re not on your favorite audio podcast provider, please email us at info@fsfpopcast.com and we will do our best to make sure that our show is listed there so that you can enjoy our show on your favorite audio podcast provider.
Also you can find video versions of our interviews and live shows on our YouTube Channel under our username FSF PopCast. And while you’re there, please remember to click like and subscribe as you watch videos. Those actions help us to continue to grow and get more content for you to be able to enjoy.
Until then …. Take care and be kind to all you meet.
English